Yep, it’s totally possible to make rich, country-style gravy without wheat flour. Slather this recipe over grain-free chicken fried steak, Instant Pot roasted chicken, cauliflower mashed “potatoes” or paleo biscuits for the ultimate experience in grain-free comfort food!
If you’re feeling adventurous add in some sausage . . . or for something more sophisticated use one cup white wine instead of broth. Enjoy!
Grain-Free Homestyle Gravy
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp butter or lard (how to render lard)
- 3 tbsp navy bean flour
- 2 cups chicken broth (or filtered water)
- sea salt (to taste)
- black pepper (to taste)
Instructions
- Melt butter over low/medium heat and add navy bean flour. Stir until the roux becomes just a little golden brown.
- Add broth/water and simmer until it is almost as thick as you like it. The gravy will continue to thicken as it cools, so remove from heat and add salt and pepper to taste.
Notes
Nutrition
Looking for more comfort food recipes?
Here are a few of my favorites:
Cauliflower Crust Pizza – This simplified cauliflower pizza crust doesn’t require any pre-cooking, steaming, squeezing, or double back-handsprings. It takes only a few minutes of hands-on time and holds together beautifully! We have it almost every Friday night – it’s one of our favorite family traditions.
Homemade Chicken Nuggets With Creamy Ranch Dressing – I’m always looking for ways to save time in the kitchen, so awhile I skipped a couple of steps while making our favorite chicken nugget recipe. And you know what? No one noticed. They gobbled them down and asked for more, so I never went back to the more complicated method.
We’ll be trying this for sure! Beans are so versatile. Sprouted wheat or kamut flour is our current standard sauce thickener. Thanks for the recipe!
I’d like to know more about navy bean flour! Can you bake with it? Such as cookies and things?
If you are on a hurry, can you gring the navy beens without soaking and dehydrating them first?
Renee Kelcey, I am still experimenting with it, but yes there is a lot you can do. Possibly even a cake!
Maria Castro – Yes you can. I certainly have 🙂
Awesome 🙂
Thank you so much for this post! I have been dying to make ground beef stroganoff GAPS legal and I couldn’t figure out how to thicken the cream soup. I never thought of navy bean flour. I’d make the gravy too, but none of my family likes it except me.
So glad you found my little trick helpful! It was a seriously huge “aha!” moment in our house 🙂
I completely forgot about bean flour! (used to use it a long time ago when I ran out of flour). This has me even more excited to be done with introduction phases because I really want to try it with my chicken A-ha king recipe!!
I guess this might work for others, but I use arrow root powder to make gravies and it works wonders, tastes good, and has no gastric side effects like beans can, even when sprouted.
Hi Lori! I used arrowroot as well until we went on GAPS (it’s not allowed). Fortunately navy and lima beans are much more digestible than most legumes so the possibility for side effects is pretty low if they are soaked beforehand 🙂
Omg… You just changed my freakin life!!!! Lol
Haha, it sounds like you like gravy as much as my husband!
LOL, I second this comment!
(I just had another disaster trying to thicken gravy with egg yolks… I think when I tried to temper the egg yolks, I didn’t quite bring them to a high enough temperature. *sigh* I’ve done it right in the past, but it’s been so long ago…)
But anyway, now to get some navy beans!!
I’m sorry for this shallow question, but how do you stay so thin??? I don’t want to just eat meat as my main ingredient all the time. Sometimes just looking at this dead cooked muscle makes my stomach turn, but it seems if you want to go grain-free you really don’t have a choice?
Love your blog!
Laura, I think if you’re feeling repulsed by the idea of eating meat that your body might be telling you something. I totally had that feeling when I transitioned to the GAPS diet (similar to primal eating) and didn’t make an effort to get enough carbs. Now I eat less meat, lots of healthy fats and a good supply of veggies including butternut squash, which has lots of easily digested carbs. I also eat navy beans a couple times a week (soaked Nourishing Traditions style) because they are easily digested and make me feel good. There is no one-size-fits-all diet, so if you don’t want to eat meat all day don’t! Eat some, though, cause it’s good for you 🙂
Hi again, just read your ‘about me’ and I wish I could delete my above question. Sorry if it came across insensitive.
Best wishes!
NOT AT ALL, Laura! Honestly I just have a slender frame. Though I **can** get chubby (I did briefly in high school), it is not something I struggle intensely with. Acne and acid reflux were my main problems before I used diet to reverse them.
I’m still getting used to being allergic to many things which led me to your site, which I absolutely love. Question. Why do you soak the beans only to dehydrate them? Just trying to understand what purpose it serves. (I’m dehydrating right now and can’t wait to try this recipe!)
Hi Lisa! I soak my beans to reduce the amount of phytic acid and other anti-nutrients they contain. More on that at http://nourishedkitchen.com/soaking-grains-nuts-legumes/
This is going to be an incredibly stupid question….are you cooking the beans before you dehydrate?
Nope, I just soak and dehydrate!
Is potato starch ok on the GAPS diet?
Hi Heather! Unfortunately potato starch is not considered a GAPS-friendly food. 🙁
Can I use garbanzo bean flour with the same success?
I haven’t tried it so I’m not sure. If you do please let me know how it turns out!
We use garbanzo bean flour, it works great!
Hi!
Just found your site and I am spending hours just browsing! We are in thr process of making diet changes here, SCD vs GAPS vs Gluten free. Overwhelming to say the least but finding great recipes like this make it seem less scary!
I just ordered a bag of Almond Flour from Honeyville. Can I use that for the gravy do you think? I dont have a grinder (just a food processor) so not sure what other options I have with the navy beans and using them for the gravy. Will probably add a grinder to my wishlist now too LOL
I don’t think almond flour would work here because it doesn’t thicken like navy bean flour. If you have a coffee grinder you can make a small batch of navy bean flour to test out, though!
Heather
I lost 100 pounds in 6 months on the Keto way of eating and intermittent fasting. Unfortunately, we cannot eat beans of any kind. Is there a substitute that you know of for the bean flour? The recipe is perfect for me except for the bean flour! I just found your site today and I am obsessed!! You are fantastic!
Hi Bink, the only other options I can think of – arrowroot flour – would not be keto compliant. Sorry I can’t be more helpful.
hi do you happen to have a recipe for chicken freid steak and gravy that is not grain free? Thankyou for the recipes they look great
Jillian, Sorry! Heather only has the grain-free version but you could try substituting sprouted or regular flour for the almond flour in the recipe.
Thankyou I would like the grain free too and got a copy of it I just wanted a cheaper version since times are hard. Thankyou the recipes look great
Do you know if you can use the oven to dehydrate the beans? If so, what temperature would I set it to?
Can you use coconut flour maybe instead of the navy bean?
I haven’t had any success with using coconut flour in gravy, unfortunately.
Hi heather ,
I want to make the navy bean gravy but I’m not sure what temperature to set my dehydrated at . I have the Excalibur an how long do you cook them for.
Thanks
Hi Margarate, I dehydrated at 115F, but I think you could go higher or lower without a problem.
This is fantastic! I made beef gravy last night for our roast and it was so nice to have gravy again! I’ve been on gaps for just over a year and I thought gravy was a thing of the past…….I want to try using this bean flour to make a cheese sauce next! So many uses for this flour! Thank you so much!
NAVY. BEAN. FLOUR. ?!?!?!
My GAPS mind has just been BLOWN.
Haha! 🙂
Hi! Thank you for this post. I’m hoping to soak my beans as well before use. To clarify, you don’t cook them at all after soaking them? Can you tell me time and temp for the dehydrator? Please and thank you!