Southern Tomato Gravy

I'm dragging out my second World-War II inspired recipe. Basic, cheap, tasty food that many of our parents and grandparents ate (and survived on!). Tomato Gravy originated in the Southern United States and apparently was a favorite with Army cooks who often served it to troops when ingredients for "typical" gravy were scarce.

Tomato Gravy is milder and creamier than a garlic-y, herb-flavored Italian-type tomato sauce, but it's not exactly like brown gravy either. It's GOOD STUFF though, especially on breakfast-y stuff. Grits, scrambles, hashbrowns, biscuits.

If you've never had tomato gravy, it's just one more thing I highly recommend that you try.

I used to LOVE having this over at a friend's house, in high school. His Mom served it over toasty, buttered white bread (which I wasn't allowed at home - possibly why I loved this gravy so much!). She's the one who told me how her father had worked in an Army mess hall and fondly remembered this gravy being served on many occasions.
I didn't know people called it "Tomato Gravy" though, and spent years looking for a recipe for that "yummy tomato-sauce stuff". Thank goodness for the Internet, as I just re-discovered it a few years ago and have been inventing new uses (besides toasted Wonderbread) ever since!

It's also good on greens, pasta, gnocchi, "meat"loaf or (like any gravy) pretty much anything.

Southern Tomato Gravy

2 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup soy milk or soy creamer (I prefer the creamer)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch cayenne
15-ounce can chopped or sliced, stewed tomatoes


Get out your cast iron skillet again. Heat the margarine or oil over medium heat. Stir in the flour with a whisk until it is lump free. Let simmer for a moment or two, to toast the flour just a little bit, and then remove from heat, and stir in the half cup milk, a little at a time.

Put back on the burner, stir and bring to a boil, it will thicken considerably, and very fast. You’ll be left with a very thick mixture. Remove from heat, add the sugar and seasonings, whisking continuously, then slowly add the juice from the tomatoes. Put back on heat and simmer (very gentle boil).

In a shallow bowl, smash the tomatoes with your fork or a potato masher to make them sort of choppy or shredded. This gravy is not smooth, so you don't have to work real hard at smashing them. The lumpy tomatoes are actually what give it the characteristic texture.

Once gravy has come to a good simmer, add the tomatoes.

Bring back to a medium simmer (but don't let it boil hard) and stir with whisk for 3 to 5 minutes until gravy thickens.

*(optional: several tablespoons of nutritional yeast, whisked in at the end, are particularly delicious if you like that sort of thing.)

**(optional: A couple shakes "Bacon Salt" or a drop or two of liquid smoke are really good here too, depending on if you want the "smoky" flavor; Southern Tomato Gravy is often, but not always, made with bacon drippings - blergh).

Serve over toast, biscuits, whatever.

The Sopranos Sunday Gravy

Tony Soprano:

"I don't mean "white" like Caucasian. I mean a white man like our friend Cusamano. Now he's Italian, but he's 'Merigan. It's what my old man would have called a Wonder Bread wop. He eats his Sunday gravy out of a jar."

Hungering for America: Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration by Hasia R. Diner; Harvard University Press, 2003.

"Italian-Americans; most specifically those in the greater Chicago, Boston, Providence, and New York areas favored the term gravy (rather than sauce) for their tomato based meat sauces."

Yes, indeed, (if you're a 'Sopranos' fan, you'd know this) the Italian meat-and-tomato pasta covering we usually know as "sauce" is better known to many as "gravy" or "Sunday gravy".

While marinara sauce was usually a fresh-tasting blend of tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, basil and herbs, and ragu was bits of meats (and ground meat) cooked in a tomato-based sauce, "Sunday gravy" is more of a slow-cooked "peasant food" meal-in-one made with whatever was left at the end of the week; less herbs and seasonings, but flavors developed by simmering several cuts and types of meats and bones (basically whatever was available) with tomatoes and vegetables over a low heat for hours (or all day Sunday while the family went to church and so forth) until the meat infuses the sauce with lots of flavor and it thickens. It's almost a cross between typical brown gravy and tomato sauce. At dinner-time, the meat is then removed and served with the sauce and pasta, or saved for another day's meal.

I've taken the actual recipe from my "Soprano's Family Cookbook" and modified it LIKE CRAZY (obviously) to make a "Sunday Gravy" that is of course vegan but still stays faithful to the heritage and idea behind the recipe, with a slow-cooked 'meaty' and gravy-like tomato sauce. This recipe is VERY hearty, definitely enough protein for several meals. I've found I only use a little bit of the sauce and end up freezing the rest or storing in the fridge for another day. REALLY good stuff though, and well worth the effort!!

Italian 'Sunday Gravy' ala "The Sopranos"

Makes about 8 Cups

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 large portabello mushrooms, cut in 1-inch chunks
2 tbsp fennel seeds
1 lb. vegan Italian-style sausage links (homemade seitan or I like the Tofurky brats) cut in chunks
1 lb. seitan cutlets, cut in strips or Gardein beef 'tips', quartered
1 onion, cut in smallish chunks
1/2 cup celery (if desired)
4 garlic cloves
1/4 cup tomato paste
Three 28-ounce cans Italian peeled tomatoes (or two cans and 2 cups chopped fresh)
1 cup water
1 cup brown "beef" style, mushroom or vegetable broth
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 whole cloves
1 bay leaf

The original recipe also has 2 lbs. of meatballs simmered in the sauce. You can use a package of 'Nate's' or your own recipe, but I find that to be major overload. Depends on how much "meat" you want.


Serve with:
2 pound box medium shells or rigatoni or some other "heavy" pasta that holds up to the texture of the sauce well; cooked and still hot
Nutritional yeast or whatever Parmesan substitute you prefer

To make the sauce:
Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat. Put fennel seeds, portabello chunks, "sausage" and "beef tips" or whatever seitan product you're using, onion and celery, in oil and turn occasionally until "meats" are nicely browned on all sides.

Add the garlic and cook for about two minutes or until golden. Add tomato paste and mix into "meats" and garlic, scraping any browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Take off heat. With a food mill, puree the tomatoes, with their juice, and add into the pot. Or, for a chunkier sauce, just chop up the tomatoes and add them. Add broth and water.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Add cloves and bay leaf tied in a cheesecloth square. Bring the sauce to a simmer. Cover the pot and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 2 hours (or in a crock pot 4 hours-to-all-day, on very low). If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little more water.

If you want to use meatballs too, add them 1/2 hour before end of cook time.

To serve:
The original recipe has you remove the meat and serve it as the next course. That doesn't work so well with mushroom and seitan chunks so I leave it in the sauce.

Cook pasta.
Toss the cooked pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle with nutritional yeast or whatever 'cheese' works for you.

Enjoy with pasta while watching your favorite episode of "The Sopranos"

Southern Tomato Gravy

In honor of our Veterans, I'm dragging out my second World-War II inspired recipe. Tomato Gravy originated in the Southern United States and apparently was a favorite with Army cooks who often served it to troops when ingredients for "typical" gravy were scarce.

Tomato Gravy is milder and creamier than a garlic and herb-flavored Italian-type tomato sauce, and not like brown gravy either. It's GOOD STUFF - if you've never had tomato gravy, it's just one more thing I highly recommend that you try.

I used to LOVE having this over at a friend's house, in high school. His Mom served it over toasty, buttered white bread (which I wasn't allowed at home - possibly why I loved this gravy so much!). She's the one who told me how her father had worked in an Army mess hall and fondly remembered this gravy being served on many occasions.
I didn't know people called it "Tomato Gravy" though, and spent years looking for a recipe for that "yummy tomato-sauce stuff". Thank goodness for the Internet, as I just re-discovered it a few years ago and have been inventing new uses (besides toasted Wonderbread) ever since!

It's also good on greens, potatoes, pasta, gnocchi, "meat"loaf or (like any gravy) pretty much anything.

Southern Tomato Gravy

2 tablespoons margarine
2 tablespoons flour
1/2 cup soy milk or soy creamer (I prefer the creamer)
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
pinch cayenne
15-ounce can chopped or sliced, stewed tomatoes


Get out your cast iron skillet again. Heat the margarine or oil over medium heat. Stir in the flour with a whisk until it is lump free. Let simmer for a moment or two, to toast the flour just a little bit, and then remove from heat, and stir in the half cup milk, a little at a time.

Put back on the burner, stir and bring to a boil, it will thicken considerably, and very fast. You’ll be left with a very thick mixture. Remove from heat, add the sugar and seasonings, whisking continuously, then slowly add the juice from the tomatoes. Put back on heat and simmer (very gentle boil).

In a shallow bowl, smash the tomatoes with your fork or a potato masher to make them sort of choppy or shredded. This gravy is not smooth, so you don't have to work real hard at smashing them. The lumpy tomatoes are actually what give it the characteristic texture.

Once gravy has come to a good simmer, add the tomatoes.

Bring back to a medium simmer (but don't let it boil hard) and stir with whisk for 3 to 5 minutes until gravy thickens.

*(optional: several tablespoons of nutritional yeast, whisked in at the end, are particularly delicious if you like that sort of thing.)

**(optional: A couple shakes "Bacon Salt" or a drop or two of liquid smoke are really good here too, depending on if you want the "smoky" flavor; Southern Tomato Gravy is often, but not always, made with bacon drippings - blergh).

Serve over toast, biscuits, whatever.