Can I make gravy in advance and reheat it?

Gravy is the last thing made and the first thing that goes wrong, because it has to be produced in the ten minutes when everything else needs attention. Nearly all of it can be done in advance, and the part that genuinely cannot — the roasting residue — takes ninety seconds on the day. This is the single most useful thing you can do to a Christmas or Sunday timetable.

Step by step

1. Build the base up to three days ahead, or freeze it.Brown onions and vegetables, add flour and cook it out, deglaze with wine, add stock, simmer, strain. That is the whole gravy except for the tin juices. Cool it quickly, refrigerate within two hours, and keep it for up to three days or freeze for three months.
2. Thicken it with flour, not cornflour.Cornflour-thickened sauces thin on reheating and weep badly after freezing, because the starch structure breaks down and then re-associates. A roux or a beurre manié survives both. This is the decision that determines whether the reheated gravy is any good.
3. Make it slightly thicker and slightly under-seasoned than you want.You will be adding tin juices and possibly stock on the day, which loosens and salts it. Leave yourself room in both directions.
4. Chill it fast and skim the fat off the top when cold.A wide dish cools far quicker than a deep pot. Once cold, any fat sets as a disc on the surface and lifts off in one piece, which is much easier than skimming hot gravy.
5. On the day, reheat it gently while the joint rests.Low heat, whisking, until it is at a simmer. It will look thicker cold and will loosen as it warms. Add a splash of stock or water if it is too thick.
6. Deglaze the roasting tin with a ladleful of the hot gravy.Pour off the fat from the tin first, keeping the dark juices. Put the tin over a low heat, add a ladle of gravy, and scrape everything off the base. Tip it back into the pan. This is what makes a made-ahead gravy taste like a made-today one.
7. Add the resting juices, then season.Whatever has run out of the meat while it rested goes in at the very end — it is concentrated and salty. Taste, season, and only then pour it into a warmed jug.

Tips

• Freeze it in a flat bag laid on a tray. It thaws in an hour in a sink of cold water rather than overnight.
• Make double and freeze half. A jug of good gravy in the freezer improves a great many midweek dinners.
• If you are roasting a bird, make the base from the giblets and neck days earlier. That is where a proper poultry gravy comes from and it takes an hour of unattended simmering.
• Warm the jug with boiling water before you pour. Gravy poured into a cold jug is lukewarm by the time it reaches the table.
• Do not add cream or butter to gravy you intend to freeze — both separate. Add them on the day if you want them.

Keeping on top of it

• Check the freezer stock of gravy base before a big roast (A week before)
• Use or refresh frozen gravy (Within three months)

Questions people ask