Make and Freeze Some Roux Now for Easy Turkey Gravy

Welcome to The Cheater’s Guide to Thanksgiving. While there are plenty of tips out there for folks making scratch desserts and artisan loaves, the Cheater’s Guide focuses on the person who could use a helping hand—even from some unconventional sources. Some might call it “cheating” (like that’s a bad thing), but there’s nothing wrong with using modern technology and supermarket know-how to help you make a bangin’ traditional feast—with much less of the traditional work.

Being smart about Thanksgiving isn’t all prepackaged sides and pre-cooked turkeys: Sometimes it’s cooking ahead of time. Far ahead of time. While you probably freeze your turkey and pie crusts, there’s another crucial, but often overlooked, candidate for freezing: the roux. The "roux" is the base and indispensable thickening agent of gravy, and you can freeze it now for a quicker gravy later.

What is a roux?

Roux is a cooked paste that consists of butter and flour. It can be cooked lightly, which is faster but with less flavor development, or it can be cooked to a deep, earthy brown, which takes time but is considerably more flavorful for brown gravy. The butter and flour are usually measured in equal proportion, but you can use more of one or the other for different sauce consistencies. The point of a roux is to thicken liquids to make gravies, soups, and mother sauces because you can’t just toss flour into a pot of turkey broth—it’ll clump up. 

To prevent that, melted butter coats the flour particles in a protective layer of fat as they’re mixed together on the stove. Gluten is only activated in the presence of water, and the high fat content in butter keeps that development to a minimum. When you do add liquid (milk, turkey drippings, beef broth, tomato juice, or the like) the paste can disperse and thicken the sauce evenly, without forming tough or stringy clumps.

How to make a roux

Making a roux is, thankfully, simple. Measure equal parts butter and flour (by weight)—let’s say one ounce each. Add the butter to a pot and melt it over medium-low heat. Add the flour and stir them together until the mixture becomes pasty and there are no dry clumps left. As you cook the roux, you’ll notice it foaming or bubbling, and you’ll see the color change as the flour toasts and the milk solids brown up. Stir and cook for as little as two minutes for a white roux, or keep it going for a darker roux. This could be 10, 15, or 20 minutes depending on the depth of flavor you seek and what you’ll be using the roux to thicken. For brown gravies, you’ll likely be stirring for about 15 minutes. 

When you set out to make gravy on Thanksgiving, it’s usually after you’ve been cooking all day and finally the turkey has come out and rendered its juices into the roasting pan. Your family is hovering nearby and the shit has officially hit the fan. Somehow, this just doesn’t seem like the right time to be tied to your roux for 15 minutes. 

How to freeze roux

Luckily, butter and flour freeze phenomenally well for months, thawing as if nothing ever happened. First, make enough roux for the amount of gravy you’ll be serving (or make a bigger batch if you’ll be using it for other soups and sauces; it’s easy enough to break apart after freezing). 

Cool the roux completely and scoop it into a zip-top freezer bag. Squish all the air out and squish the paste flat. Lay it on a flat surface in the freezer until it’s completely frozen, an hour or longer depending on how much you made. Alternatively, you could freeze a large batch of roux in smaller servings in an ice cube tray, but I usually just break off pieces I need from the freezer bag. 

How to use roux for gravy

When you’re ready to make gravy for Thanksgiving (or thicken other sauces or soups), simply take the roux out of the freezer and break it into chunks while it’s still in the bag. Pour the pieces into a pot and heat it over low heat to melt and warm up. Then proceed from that step as if you’d just spent the last 20 minutes browning your roux—pour in the stock, and add drippings and seasonings. Don’t forget to pour the piping hot gravy into one of these containers to keep it hot throughout the meal.