Cremini mushrooms are simmered in whiskey-spiked broth to create this flavor-packed vegan gravy that will have everyone at your table asking for more!
A mushroom walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve your kind here.”
The mushroom says, “Why not? I’m a fungi?” (Fungi = fun guy. Get it?)
Ba-dum-bum!
The kind of embarrassing part is that I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could start my whiskey mushroom gravy post with a line about a mushroom walking into a bar?” only to realize that my husband would definitely have a punchline for that one. He did win my heart with a joke about a leprechaun with a steering wheel in his pants.
Moving on! Gravy. It seems like the whiskey in the gravy’s gotten me a bit loopy, leprechaun jokes and all, but it hasn’t. I wouldn’t be eating it if it did, because uncooked whiskey tastes like paint thinner to me. Cooked whiskey though, when the alcohol has simmered off, is just about the most delicious thing on earth.
There are a million mushroom gravy recipes out there, and I’ll be honest, I struggled in coming up with my own over Thanksgivings past. It just recently occurred to me that my favorite love-hate booze would make a mean vegan gravy, and it did!
There’s quite a bit of whiskey in this batch of gravy, but it’s worth it. Every time I work on whiskey I find myself tipping the bottle a little heavier with each trial, until you can really taste that woodsy smoky flavor. (Evidence: here, here and here.) I ended up throwing a full cup of whiskey into this batch before I was satisfied, and it turned out to be my favorite gravy ever.
Whiskey Mushroom Gravy
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
- 12 ounces cremini mushrooms, cleaned, stemmed and coarsely chopped
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1/2 cup whiskey
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, or 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus extra, as needed
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 1 tablespoon soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Coat the bottom of a large pot with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and place over medium heat. Add mushrooms in an even layer and cook until browned on bottoms, about 5 minutes. Flip and cook 5 minutes more. Remove from pot and transfer to a plate.
- Add remaining 2 tablespoons of oil to the pot. When oil is hot, add onion and sauté until soft and translucent. Add whiskey and thyme, and return mushrooms to the pot. Bring to a simmer and allow to cook until reduced by about half, about 5 minutes.
- Add 2 tablespoons of flour to the pot, a bit at a time, stirring frequently to form a thick paste. Once all of the flour is added, stir in broth, soy sauce and liquid smoke. Stir until smooth and bring to a simmer. Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes, until the sauce is thick and mushrooms are tender. Add a bit of water if a thinner gravy is desired. If thicker gravy is desired, transfer a bit of the sauce to a bowl, whisk in a bit more flour to form a slurry, and then whisk the flour mixture into the gravy.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
Ooooh, whiskey! What a great idea. I love making vegetarian gravy and never thought to add a nice, smoky spirit.
Yeah, so far I’ve loved everything I’ve added whiskey to, and it just occurred to me that it would be awesome in some gravy!
Can I saute in veg broth rather than ucky oil? :)
I think so, though I don’t do a whole lot of oil-free sauteeing, so I’m not sure. For the mushrooms you might just want to skip the sauteeing, since they’ll suck up all of the liquid either way.
I usually begin to saute mushrooms without oil so they get browned. As you know, there is a lot of moisture in those mushrooms, so you don’t have to saute in veg broth, but I’d keep a watch on them as well as saute at a medium high. Long story short, yes you can.
This recipe just popped up again at Facebook, so I’ll leave a comment to a post from 2016… Just with mushrooms you can use lemon juice (!) to saute instead of oil. I didn’t believe it when I first heard about thi,s, but I gave it a try and it worked pretty well. In the case of this recipe you can even avoid the “two steps” of sauting the mushrooms. Depending on the size of the lemon, pour the juice of a half or a full lemon into your pot, heat it up a bit and then add the onions and a little later the mushrooms plus the thyme (and, of course, salt and pepper). When I’m preparing a mushroom dish like this I don’t use neither alcohol nor flour (and it works well), but from this step on you can follow Alissa’s recipe as it’s written. (Type II diabetics have to avoid fat/oil and flour wherever they can.)
Thanks so much for the tip! I will have to give it a try!
Oh, I have to try this! I love whisky and mushrooms.
Me too! I hope you enjoy it. :)
Oh man I need to make this next Thanksgiving! Whiskey is awesome ^__^
I know! I’m not into drinking whiskey at all, but I’ve absolutely loved everything I’ve cooked with whiskey. :)
Ooookay so just made this and it is DELICIOUS! I modified it a bit though.. At the point where you add the liquor, I didn’t have much whiskey (only had about half an inch left in a pint) so I added in a healthy splash of some chardonnay I had in the fridge in addition to the whiskey. I let the mushrooms cook off all that liquid almost completely, until the point where they started to caramelize just a bit on the edges (so much flavor when that happens!). I then added the flour, broth, liquid smoke and Bragg’s Liquid Aminos because I didn’t have soy sauce. Let that cook down for awhile, and then poured off about 3/4 into the blender. I added more brother, a bit more liquid smoke, aminos and buzzed it down before readding it back to the other 1/4. Stirred to reincorporate, added a bit more flour. Repeated that once or twice more until I had the volume and consistency I wanted. I’ll probably cook off a few mushrooms tomorrow and keep them in diced chunks to stir in last minute. It’s soo tasty and I can’t wait to serve it tomorrow! Thank you CV!!!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!! I love the addition of some wine – I actually improvised a bit this year and threw some into my Thanksgiving gravy. :) Thanks Stephanie!
Can you recommend a whiskey to use?
I been using Evan Williams bourbon. :)
Can I use almond or coconut flour instead ?
I haven’t tried either, but almond might work – I’ve seen other recipes that use it as a thickener. Are you going for a gluten-free gravy? Your best bet might be arrowroot or a slurry or cornstarch – dissolve a few teaspoons in some cold water and add it to the gravy at the end. :)
The recipe calls for three cups of vegetable broth but nowhere does it say where, if any, to use it. Just a typo?
Step 2 – right after the flour. :)