Easy Ham Gravy Recipe {How to Make with Drippings} - Adventures of Mel (2024)

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November 24, 2023December 1, 2017 by Mel Lockcuff

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How to make an easy homemade ham gravy recipe, made last minute with leftover ham drippings. This gravy makes a delicious side dish with ham, mashed potatoes, and all the fixings at your holiday or family dinner!

Homemade ham gravy (like its counterpart turkey gravy) is a staple side dish whenever we cook a ham in the oven, which is mostly on holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. Family dinner and holiday dinners just wouldn’t be the same without gravy to smother over our sliced ham and mashed potatoes.

Now it's important to remember… The main flavoring for ham gravy comes directly from the ham itself. So if you glaze your ham, like with a brown sugar glaze or something like this sweet pineapple honey baked ham, the sweet flavoring from the glazed ham will go into your gravy for ham, and the end result will be a sweet gravy.

It's so easy to make homemade gravy, and it's super quick too. It's delicious and definitely worth the minimal effort.

Why You'll Love Knowing How to Make Ham Gravy

There are a lot of reasons to love this delicious gravy recipe…

• It's an easy condiment to make, takes less than 30 minutes to make, and it's something you can make last minute just before serving the main meal.
• It takes a very minimal amount of ingredients to make gammon gravy. In fact, they're all pretty simple, and you likely already have them on hand.
• It's a delicious ham gravy!
• Ham gravy is so versatile and can be used in so many delicious ways. Not only does it complement a ham dinner, but it makes a very tasty addition to your nextbaked potato baror mashed potato bar, as well as a tasty dip for leftover ham crescent rolls. And you can use it in place of brown gravy or chicken gravy in a mashed potato bowl.
• It's a fantastic addition to your holiday dinner spread. I’ve added this ham gravy recipe with drippings to my collections of favorite Thanksgiving recipes,Christmas recipes, and Easter dinner recipes, where you’ll find all the holiday inspiration you need in one place.

Ingredients and Substitutions Notes

You'll need just a handful of ingredients to make gravy for gammon (or ham). While you should have most of the ingredients on hand, you'll likely need to purchase a ham at the grocery store, in order to have leftover ham drippings.

• All-Purpose Flour – I prefer to use an unbleached all-purpose flour; you can also use a good gluten-free flour, although it's important to note that gravy made with gluten-free flour doesn't stay thick as long as with regular flour… In other words, it won't store well. If you need a good gluten-free ham gravy alternative, ham gravy with cornstarch is just the thing.
• Heavy Cream – You can skim heavy cream off of raw milk, or you can use store bought heavy whipping cream.
• Ham Drippings – You can scoop the ham juices and pan drippings from the roasting pan after baking a spiral ham, bone-in whole ham, or boneless ham. You should have enough drippings to at least make a small batch of homemade gravy. These leftover ham drippings will likely give you all the delicious flavor you need without any extra seasoning, salt, or black pepper. If you don't have any ham drippings, you can always use ham broth made from bouillon to make ham gravy.
• Water

How to Make This Old-Fashioned Ham Gravy Recipe

Making this easy gravy for ham is actually really simple, but there are a few tips and tricks that will ensure you make a really good gravy from ham drippings.

How to Avoid Lumpy Gravy

Before we get started, here are 3 tips for preventing lumpy gravy…

• It's important to start with a roux, and you do this by mixing together the flour and heavy whipping cream in a smallmixing bowlor glass measuring cup. Whisking this together in the beginning will help prevent lumps in your gravy.
• Use a whisk to stir your gravy while it's cooking. It’s pretty much a given that you may have a few lumps, but you can minimize them by whisking the gravy.
• Take your time to avoid any lumps in your gravy. To me, this right here is the secret to good gravy… Patience and being willing to take your time. Work on medium-low heat, and don't get in a hurry, and you'll make a good gravy.

Now Let's Make Ham Gravy

1. Mix together the flour and heavy whipping cream in a smallmixing bowl or glass measuring cup.

2. Graduallywhisktogether the flour/cream mixture with the pan drippings in alarge saucepanor skillet on medium heat.

3. Add in the water.

4. Continue whisking and stirring the gravy until it begins to thicken and is ready to serve.

See Also

15 Single-Recipe Meal Prep IdeasHow to halve Instant Pot recipes - 365 Days of Slow Cooking and Pressure CookingOne Skillet chicken with Fiesta Cream Sauce Recipe | Little Spice JarThe 51 Best Ina Garten Recipes of All Time

Then just pour the gravy into a gravy boat, and serve it with ham, mashed potatoes, and all the fixin's! It will add such a rich flavor to your mashed potatoes, you'll wish you had that ham flavor the next time you eat potatoes.

Expert Tips and Recipe FAQ's

More Side Dish Recipes to Serve with Ham Dinner

Whenever we make a ham dinner or turkey dinner, we usually serve it with sides like Instant Pot southern green beans, honey glazed carrots, or Jiffy corn casserole. Of course, homemade cranberry sauce is a must at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

If it's more gravy recipes you're looking for, Moscato Mom has a delicious recipe for slow cooker short ribs with gravy (also a keto recipe). And 918 Plate has a very yummy recipe for jumbo drop biscuits with brown butter gravy.

If you try this recipe, why not leave a star rating in the recipe card right below and/or a reviewin the comment sectionfurther down the page? I always appreciate your feedback. You can also follow me on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And subscribe to my email list too!