Turkey gravy for mashed potatoes needs to be a little thicker than the gravy you’d pour over sliced turkey, so it sits in that buttery potato crater instead of running off the plate. My version is 1/2 cup fat, 1/2 cup flour and 4 cups of drippings plus broth, simmered for about 8 minutes. Done in 20, no lumps, and it works even if your turkey gave you almost nothing in the pan.
I say that last part from experience. One year our bird came out of the oven with maybe three tablespoons of drippings and a lot of burnt bits, and I had 14 people waiting. Butter and good broth saved me that day, and honestly I’ve made it that way ever since about half the time.
Thanksgiving is November 26 this year. I’m making mine this weekend and sticking it in the freezer, because Thanksgiving morning me needs all the help she can get.
Quick Facts
- Prep: 5 min · Cook: 15 min · Total: 20 min
- Makes: about 4 cups, enough for 8 people (1/2 cup each)
- You need: turkey fat or butter, flour, drippings and/or broth, a splash of soy sauce, thyme
- Works without drippings: yes
- Make ahead: up to 4 days in the fridge, or freeze it
Table of Contents
- Why This Gravy Is Made for Mashed Potatoes
- Ingredients and Swaps
- How to Make Turkey Gravy for Mashed Potatoes
- Thin, Medium or Thick? The Ratio Chart
- How Much Gravy Per Person?
- Easy Turkey Gravy Without Drippings
- Planning Gravy for Thanksgiving 2026
- Lumpy, Thin or Salty Gravy? Quick Fixes
- Flavor Variations
- Make Ahead, Store and Reheat
- Turkey Gravy FAQ
- My Last Gravy Tip
Want just the amounts? Here’s the recipe card.
Why This Gravy Is Made for Mashed Potatoes
Most gravy recipes are built for turkey slices. They’re thinner, kind of a sauce, and that’s great on meat. On mashed potatoes though, thin gravy just floods the plate and makes the stuffing soggy (ask me how I know).
So I bump up the roux a bit. Two tablespoons of fat and two of flour for each cup of liquid gives you a gravy that coats the back of a spoon and holds a little shape in the potato well. It’s still pourable. It just stays put.
The other thing is color and depth. Brined turkeys especially give you pretty pale drippings, and beige gravy on white potatoes is just… not cute. So I let the flour toast till it smells like popcorn and looks like peanut butter, and then a teaspoon of soy sauce goes in. Nobody ever guesses the soy. They just say it tastes “meaty.”
Ingredients and Swaps
Fat: 1/2 cup (113 g). Skim it right off the top of your drippings. Came up short? Make up the difference with unsalted butter. Most years mine’s roughly half turkey fat, half butter.
Flour: 1/2 cup (63 g) plain all-purpose. Nothing fancy.
Liquid: 4 cups (950 ml) total, made up of whatever defatted drippings you have plus low-sodium turkey or chicken broth. Heat it up in the microwave first. Cold liquid hitting hot roux is where lumps come from.
Flavor: 1 tsp soy sauce, 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (or 1/4 tsp dried), 1/2 tsp black pepper, and salt at the very end, starting with 1/4 tsp. Taste before salting, some drippings are already plenty salty (looking at you, brined birds).
Out of something? I’ve tried all of these at one point or another.
| Ingredient | Swap | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Turkey fat | Unsalted butter | Milder, a bit sweeter; works perfectly |
| All-purpose flour | 1/4 cup cornstarch + cold water slurry | Glossier, gluten-free, sets thinner when hot |
| Turkey drippings | Low-sodium turkey or chicken broth | Less roasty; add soy and butter for depth |
| Fresh thyme | 1/2 tsp poultry seasoning | More sage-forward, classic holiday flavor |
| Soy sauce | 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce | Tangier, same deeper color |
How to Make Turkey Gravy for Mashed Potatoes
Grab a medium saucepan (or use the roasting pan right on the burners, tastier but clunky) and an actual whisk. I tried a wooden spoon once. Lumps everywhere.
- Melt the fat. Turkey fat and/or butter goes in the pan over medium heat. Wait till it’s foamy.
- Whisk in the flour. Sprinkle it in and keep whisking. For a few seconds it looks like damp sand. Keep going.
- Cook the roux. 3 to 5 minutes of whisking, until it’s light golden and smells kind of nutty. This is not the moment to check your phone. It burns fast.
- Add the warm liquid slowly. Pour in about 1 cup and whisk hard. It’ll seize into a paste. Totally normal. Then the next cup, and the next. Smooth it out each time before you add more.
- Simmer. Add the soy sauce, thyme and pepper. Turn it down so it’s just burbling and give it 5 to 8 minutes, stirring when you remember. It’s ready when you can drag a finger through the gravy on a spoon and the line holds.
- Season and serve. Taste, then add salt little by little. If company’s coming I strain it for that silky restaurant look. Otherwise I don’t bother.
Never made a roux? Don’t let the French word scare you. It’s fat plus flour, stirred over heat, that’s all, and gravy is the most forgiving place to practice it. You can read a little more about what a roux is if you’re curious.
Turkey Gravy for Mashed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup turkey fat and/or unsalted butter 113 g, skimmed from the drippings, topped up with butter
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 63 g
- 4 cups defatted turkey drippings plus low-sodium turkey or chicken broth 950 ml total, warmed
- 1 tsp soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp fresh thyme leaves or 1/4 tsp dried
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt plus more to taste
Method
- Melt the turkey fat and/or butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat until it starts to bubble.
- Sprinkle in the flour and whisk constantly until smooth, about 30 seconds.
- Keep whisking and cook the roux for 3 to 5 minutes, until it smells nutty and turns light golden brown, like peanut butter.
- Slowly pour in about 1 cup of the warm drippings and broth while whisking hard. It will thicken into a paste. Add the rest 1 cup at a time, whisking smooth after each addition.
- Stir in the soy sauce, thyme and pepper. Simmer gently for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring often, until the gravy coats the back of a spoon.
- Taste, then add salt a pinch at a time. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve for extra-smooth gravy if you like, and serve hot over mashed potatoes.
Notes
Private Notes
Tried this recipe?
Let us know how it was!Thin, Medium or Thick? The Ratio Chart
This lives on an index card taped inside my spice cabinet. Amounts are for each cup of liquid, so just multiply.
| Thickness | Fat | Flour | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thin | 1 tbsp | 1 tbsp | Sliced turkey, soaking into stuffing |
| Medium (this recipe) | 2 tbsp | 2 tbsp | Mashed potatoes, all-purpose |
| Thick | 3 tbsp | 3 tbsp | Biscuits, hot turkey sandwiches |
Heads up, gravy keeps thickening after it leaves the stove. Perfect in the pan usually means a little gloppy by the time grandpa gets to it. I take mine off the heat when it’s slightly looser than I want.
How Much Gravy Per Person?
About 1/2 cup each, when mashed potatoes are on the menu. That’s enough for potatoes, some turkey, and the one uncle who basically drinks it. I always make an extra cup or two anyway, leftover turkey sandwiches with gravy are half the point.
Here’s how I scale it for different crowd sizes.
| Guests | Gravy | Fat + flour (each) | Liquid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 2 cups | 1/4 cup | 2 cups |
| 8 | 4 cups | 1/2 cup | 4 cups |
| 12 | 6 cups | 3/4 cup | 6 cups |
| 16 | 8 cups | 1 cup | 8 cups |
Doubling it? Be patient, a big pot can need 10 or 12 minutes before it thickens up.
Easy Turkey Gravy Without Drippings
Zero drippings? Still totally doable, and nobody at the table will know. Butter becomes your fat (1/2 cup), boxed low-sodium turkey broth is all your liquid (4 cups), and the soy sauce handles color. My secret weapon is a spoonful of that turkey bouillon paste in a jar, it gives you the roasted-bird taste you’re missing.
This is also my move when we smoke or fry the turkey, since those don’t leave much in the way of pan juices. And if you made a rotisserie turkey breast instead of a whole bird, save whatever drips into the tray. Even a couple of tablespoons adds a lot.
Planning Gravy for Thanksgiving 2026
With Thanksgiving on Thursday, November 26, here’s the timeline I’m using this year. Make a batch of no-drippings gravy the weekend before and freeze it. Then on the day, the turkey has to rest for 20 minutes or so anyway. That’s when I warm up the frozen stuff and whisk in a few spoonfuls of fresh drippings from the roasting pan. Tastes like I just made it. I didn’t.
Searches for turkey gravy for mashed potatoes keep climbing every fall (Semrush shows a rising trend again this October), and I think it’s because so many of us are hosting smaller, simpler dinners now. A turkey breast, a big bowl of potatoes, really good gravy. Honestly that’s my favorite kind of Thanksgiving.
Safety-wise, the turkey itself needs to hit 165°F in the thickest part, per the FoodSafety.gov temperature chart, before those drippings go anywhere near your gravy.
Lumpy, Thin or Salty Gravy? Quick Fixes
Gravy panic is real. Almost every problem is fixable in a couple of minutes though.
| Problem | Why it happened | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Lumpy | Liquid added too fast or too cold | Whisk hard, or blend 10 seconds / strain |
| Too thin | Not simmered long enough | Simmer 5 more min, or add 1 tbsp cornstarch slurry |
| Too thick | Cooked down or cooled | Whisk in warm broth, 2 tbsp at a time |
| Too salty | Salty drippings or broth | Add unsalted broth and a little more roux |
| Pale or bland | Roux not browned enough | Add 1/2 tsp soy sauce and a pinch of pepper |
| Greasy | Too much fat for the flour | Skim the top with a spoon or paper towel |
Flavor Variations
Creamy Turkey Gravy
My dad’s favorite. Hold back 1/2 cup of broth and pour in heavy cream (or whole milk) at the end instead, and it goes pale and rich, kinda like what you’d get at a diner.
Herb Butter Gravy
Chop up a sage leaf and a pinch of rosemary and toss them in with the thyme. Right before it goes to the table, drop in 2 tablespoons of cold butter and swirl. Super shiny.
Mushroom Turkey Gravy
My brother-in-law asks for this one every single year. Before the flour goes in, cook 8 oz (225 g) of sliced mushrooms in the fat until they’re brown. Five extra minutes, tops.
Gluten-Free Gravy
Skip the roux. Bring the liquid to a simmer and whisk in 1/4 cup cornstarch mixed with 1/4 cup cold water, and use tamari instead of soy sauce.
Make Ahead, Store and Reheat
Fridge: Don’t leave it sitting out on the counter past 2 hours. Once it’s in the fridge you’ve got 3 to 4 days, which is the same window USDA gives for turkey and stuffing in their Let’s Talk Turkey guide. A skin forms on top in the fridge. Just whisk it back in.
Freezer: I freeze it flat in zip bags so they stack, good for 2 to 3 months. Thawed gravy can look a little broken. A minute of whisking over heat brings it right back.
Reheat: Low and slow in a small pot, whisking, till it’s bubbling around the edges (165°F if you want to check). Too thick? A splash of broth. The 165°F rule is the same for pretty much any leftovers, per the USDA leftovers page explains.
Turkey Gravy FAQ
How do you make turkey gravy for mashed potatoes?
The short version: equal parts fat and flour (1/2 cup each), cooked a few minutes till golden. Then 4 cups of warm drippings and broth, whisked in slowly, and a 5 to 8 minute simmer. Salt, pepper, thyme. That’s honestly it.
Can you make turkey gravy without drippings?
Yep, I do it all the time. Butter instead of turkey fat, broth for every bit of the liquid. Soy sauce fixes the color, and bouillon paste makes up for the missing roasty flavor.
Should gravy for mashed potatoes be thick or thin?
Medium-thick. You want it to coat a spoon and sit in the potato well instead of running everywhere. That’s about 2 tablespoons each of fat and flour per cup of liquid.
Why is my gravy lumpy?
Nine times out of ten it’s cold broth, or pouring it all in at once. Warm it up, add it slowly, whisk like you mean it. Already lumpy? Pour it through a strainer, or hit it with a stick blender for a few seconds. No shame.
How far ahead can I make turkey gravy?
The fridge gives you 3 to 4 days, the freezer 2 to 3 months. I make mine the weekend before, then warm it gently and loosen it with a little broth.
What can I add to gravy for more flavor?
A teaspoon of soy sauce or Worcestershire, fresh thyme or sage, a spoonful of the browned bits from the roasting pan, or a little cold butter whisked in at the end all make a big difference.
My Last Gravy Tip
Warm your gravy boat. Fill it with hot water while the gravy simmers, then dump it out right before you pour. Your gravy stays hot through the whole first round of plates, which sounds minor until you’ve had cold gravy on hot potatoes.
Make this once and let me know in the comments if it held up on your potatoes, or what you tweaked. Leaving a star rating on the recipe card helps a lot too. Pin it to your Thanksgiving board so it’s easy to find in November. Need something to go with it? This classic Mrs. Cubbison’s stuffing loves a ladle of gravy, and so does this slow cooker chicken stuffing casserole.
