Why faux? Well, because the “biscuits” are gnocchi and the “sausage” is Morningstar Farms fake meat breakfast sausage. Taste just like sausage by the way and you can find it in the hippie section of your local grocery store.
I love real life biscuits and gravy. I love Mountain House’s biscuits and gravy. I can’t take real biscuits and gravy on the trail and Mountain House’s, well, it’s expensive for what it is and it’s like Chinese food – you’re hungry an hour after you eat it.
So I decided to make my own.
You may not like fake meats. You may think it gives you cancer. You may just be super committed to the carnivorous lifestyle. Whatever, I get it. You do not, I repeat, you do not have to use fake meat. You can use whatever you want. You can dehydrate real sausage, you can toss in cubed up Spam, you can use bacon jerky or cut up a Slim Jim. You can just do no meat or dehydrated mushrooms. That fake meat part is completely optional.
I like to use it because I always have some in my freezer, I don’t have to bother cooking it, it’s very easy to dehydrate, it’s actually pretty tasty, and it rehydrates really well.
Let me tell you how to do this:
FAUX BISCUITS & GRAVY
INGREDIENTS
1/2 a packet of Pioneer instant white gravy mix (I use the sausage flavor)
1/2 cup of potato gnocchi
1/3 cup meat of your choice
1 cup water
DIRECTIONS
If you’re not using Spam or any other meat that you can just open a package and put it in on trail, you’ll have to use dehydrated meat. For the fake sausage “meat” I chop up the patties. Both flavors, the maple and the spicy, are very delicious. I like to do one of each for this. So I chop them up and dehydrate them. I usually dehydrate two full bags at one time so I only have to do it once and use it a bunch of times.
To rehydrate on the trail, add about 1/4 cup of water in your cook pot along with the crumbled meat. Bring to a boil, cut the heat off and stir in gravy mix. Let stand for 5 minutes. Then add the rest of the water and gnocchi bring back to a boil to desired thickness and let stand another 5 or 10 minutes. Enjoy!
A couple quick notes, if you’re not using Pioneer white gravy, by all means, use your favorite brand or what you can get. I get it at Wal-Mart, Publix, everywhere. But for whatever reason you’re using a different brand, you may need to alter the amount of water. For a full packet of the Pioneer, it calls for 2 cups of water, so I just cut that in half. Be sure to read the instructions on your gravy mix because it may call for different amounts of water. Just cut it in half.
If you’re going to dehydrate real sausage, I would recommend after you cook it, you rinse it with hot water. I realize you’re rinsing off goodness, but you don’t want to have all that fat and grease on your meat when you dehydrate and store it.
Want more backpacking meals?
I gave this a rip for breakfast before breaking camp and hiking out yesterday morning. Solid recipe I’ll definitely be revisiting on those cool, damp mornings.
Love to hear that – it’s one of my favs for breakfast.
How do you dehydrate your meat? What temp? How long?
Since it’s “faux meat”, I usually use a lower temperature, about 135 and dry it until it feels dry. I’ve tried this in two different dehydrators, and it takes different times in each, so it’s hard to give a time. You’ll know when it’s dry. If you’re gonna use real meat or sausage, you’ll want a higher temp and go till it’s dry, but I would store it in the freezer if you’re not gonna use it soon. With real sausage, it won’t have as long of a shelf life as the fake meat stuff.
Do you dehydrate the gnocchi? Is it frozen when you buy it?
No sir, I just used regular, shelf stable gnocchi. The kind that’s there by the pastas. They also have it at the Dollar Tree. They’re not dehydrated, but not “dry” either.
Ah I see that now. Well I had bought frozen regular gnocchi and tried dehydrating it yesterday. If anyone else is wondering, it did not work out! Lol wouldn’t rehydrate and was basically ruined. I’m trying to reduce weight and using freezer bag cooking, so I’ll try the shelf stable potato stuff in smaller bits dehydrated and report back with that as well.
They do sell mini-gnocchi, I see them everywhere, that works really great with this. As they come just out of the pack, they last a really long time and take just a few minutes to plump up and enjoy.
Do let me know what you think when you try it again – it’s a delicious breakfast!
ran across your faux biscuits and gravy recipe while surfing web . going to try it. one question , do you cook the moringstar farms sausage before you dehydrate it ?
No, you can just defrost and dehydrate. Super easy.