This simple and easy Southern style Tomato Gravy is delicious over biscuits for breakfast or brunch. A lot of people love it over rice or cornbread, too.
Tomato Gravy Over Biscuits
This simple and easy old-style Tomato Gravy is best over biscuits at breakfast or brunch, but would make a great “Breakfast for Dinner” dish, too. For some of you, it will take you back to your roots. Before you go any further you’ll want to read Southern Food Then and Now.
The rest of you will wonder where Tomato Gravy over biscuits has been all your life. Another way we love it is over Toasted Cornbread. Never heard of that? Click over here for an easy recipe.
Many people eat Tomato Gravy over rice, and that’s yummy too, and more of a lunch or dinner dish. It’s so easy, and uses plain ingredients that you probably already have in your pantry, so make it often.
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An Iron Skillet is Ideal
Now I make my Tomato Gravy in an iron skillet. If you don’t have one, you can make a perfectly good gravy in any skillet. But, seriously, if you don’t have an iron skillet, why not? You can order one here.
Tomato Gravy is So Versatile
I make many of my recipes super versatile and this one is no exception. I called for diced tomatoes, but if you have crushed instead that would be fine. If you have whole, canned tomatoes you can cut them up or throw them in a blender very briefly.
Likewise, I used chicken stock, but beef would be good too. Or use broth instead of stock if that’s what you have. If you don’t have either, just use water. It won’t be quite as rich, but it will still be delicious.
The most important ingredient
The last, and a key ingredient, is pan drippings from your breakfast meat. After you’ve cooked bacon, sausage or ham, stir in a spoonful or two of the pan drippings (scraping the bottom of the pan — you’ll have to add a little water if you cooked ham).
My favorite is a local sausage from my family’s area in north Florida — Driggers Sausage. Have you read about our annual Cane Grinding in that area? There’s always plenty of Driggers Sausage. A good substitute if you absolutely have no pan drippings is this Ham Base. I use it in a lot of southern style vegetables.
Easy Tomato Gravy
Ingredients
- 2 -14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes
- 4 Tbsp flour
- 1 cup stock chicken or beef
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. pepper
- Approximately 2-3 Tbsp. pan drippings from ham sausage or bacon
Instructions
- Heat tomatoes in iron skillet over medium heat.
- Stir flour into stock and whisk until there are no lumps.
- Stir flour/stock mixture into hot tomatoes, whisking as you stir.
- Bring to a boil and stir until thickened.
- Reduce heat to simmer.
- Stir in salt, pepper and pan drippings.
- Simmer for at least 5-10 minutes.
If you’re here you must love southern food, so you will definitely want to check out Sweet Potato Biscuits. They are so good, y’all! And Southern Food Then and Now is all about traditions, regions and the origins of our favorite cuisine!
This recipe made our Annual Reader Favorites. Check out the rest here.
Easy Tomato Gravy
Ingredients
- 2 -14.5 ounce cans diced tomatoes
- 4 Tbsp flour
- 1 cup stock chicken or beef
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. pepper
- Approximately 2-3 Tbsp. pan drippings from ham sausage or bacon
Instructions
- Heat tomatoes in iron skillet over medium heat.
- Stir flour into stock and whisk until there are no lumps.
- Stir flour/stock mixture into hot tomatoes, whisking as you stir.
- Bring to a boil and stir until thickened.
- Reduce heat to simmer.
- Stir in salt, pepper and pan drippings.
- Simmer for at least 5-10 minutes.
Pin Tomato Gravy Recipe Here
Love all things Southern Food?
If you’re reading this post chances are you love southern food and know others that do too.
We’ve put together this awesome guide, Great Gifts for the Southern Foodie. It has several cast iron cookware choices, books of southern recipes and food history and small items that would make a great gift basket. We did the homework for you, and have only included items with Amazon 4 stars and above.
You’ll want to be sure and check out our recipe for Southern Fried Chicken. We even had it cut up with a pulley (wish) bone.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane. For some other old style southern favorites, check these out.
Other Southern Favorites
Bourbon Peppercorn Sauce for Filet Mignon 
Coconut Pie 
Traditional Ambrosia 
Bourbon Cocktail with Honey, Sage & Orange 
Crustless Tomato Pie 
Classic Southern Succotash
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For a ton of other great recipes be sure to check out Meal Plan Monday
Biscuits with tomato gravy and bacon would have been soooo good for breakfast! Love it!
You can have it this weekend!
Mmmmmm… This sounds wonderful! -Marci @ Stone Cottage Adventures
Thanks, Marci!
This recipe reminds me of my mother’s tomato dumplings—yum!
Hmm…. I’ve never heard of tomato dumplings – but they sound good, too. I’ll have to search out a recipe.
Mama cooked her bacon in the iron skillet till it was crisp and laid it out on paper towels. Added the tomatoes , home grown if that time of the year, added a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper cooked till done and crumbled up the bacon in the gravy. Served it over her drop biscuits , dam it was good too. Almost as good as her scrambled hamburgers .
Love bringing back those memories. Your mama’s sounds delicious too.
Simply Wonderful. I tried it this afternoon. I pan fried some sausages and and then added the diced tomatoes. Served that with some pasta and VOILA…instant hit.
So glad to know you enjoyed it!
I grew up on tomato gravy my mom made Brown gravy and cut a couple of tomatoes up and let it simmer . gosh it was so good
Takes you back, doesn’t it, Sheila?
Yesss. Love brown 🍅 gravy over cube steak. Yummmyy
I am going to try this recipe
Hope you enjoy, Alice! Let us know how it turns out.
I am going to have to try this, I love stewed tomatoes so this is something like it.
We hope you enjoy Pete!
My mother used to make tomato gravy (it was slightly sweet so had a little sugar or the tomatoes were TN sweet)! It was delicious! Our favorite way that she served it was–a layer of sliced open cornbread on a plate, covered with white beans, and topped with tomato gravy–It was an awesome meal!
Thanks, Emily. We love keep great family memories like that alive.
I’m making homemade tomato gravy for breakfast for my best friend Susan Newton I’m the morning
I hope she loved it, Sherry. You are a good friend!
Sounds like a great recipe! I’d like to make it, but with fresh tomatoes. How do I do that?
thanks.
Al E.
Thanks, Al! Fresh tomatoes would be great. I would just cook them down first, like you would for any dish you would use stewed tomatoes. You’ll need quite a few to get the equivalent of two cans. That would be about 3.5 cups of cooked tomatoes. I like to dip my fresh tomatoes in boiling water for about a minute to make them easier to peel. Then just cut them up coarsely and simmer for 30 minutes or so. After that proceed with the gravy recipe. I hope you love it like we do.
I’m from TN, but the first time I had tomato gravy was from my mother in law in FL. She would add flour to bacon grease (like you’re making gravy), then then add the tomatoes and some milk, and of course salt & pepper. She always served it over rice, and it was so good!! Haven’t made it in a while, got to do it!
We love love love it when readers comment about our recipes bringing back family memories! Hope you’ll enjoy it, Donna.
I Make regular milk gravy, then simmer fresh tomatoes
This is a family favorite of ours over biscuits and my mom always made bacon beforehand and we ate it with bacon. She used the bacon grease to cook the tomato gravy. I wonder where this originated? We lived in Alabama and I think my grandmother passed it down to my mom. Most people I know in Texas have never even heard of this. Some people know of red-eye gravy which is completely different.
We’ve always had it with whatever breakfast meat was cooked that day, sausage, ham or bacon. I wish I knew too where it originated. Agree that a lot of people never heard of it – that’s why we decided to publish the recipe. Thanks for visiting Jonathan!