These Instant Gravy Cubes Make Shockingly Good Gravy
Once you’ve learned to make a roux, gravy isn’t very difficult to master. But the roux making process can go wrong, and broken roux results in weak, watery gravy, ruining what otherwise promised to be an enticing accompaniment to your meal. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could skip the roux altogether?
For home cooks who find themselves dreading the gravy making process, BOU’s gravy cubes are a godsend. With just half a cup of water, one cube will make gravy that thickens up as if it were given the benefit of a true roux. That’s because BOU’s gravy cubes are essentially compressed roux. When unwrapped, the gravy cubes are soft, crumbly, and pliable to the touch; the principal ingredients are wheat flour and palm oil. BOU boasts that its gravy cubes are free of artificial ingredients, and it provides a range of flavors for customers to choose from: chicken, turkey, brown, and mushroom. The mushroom variety is certified vegan, for customers who want to avoid animal products altogether.
Of course, instant gravy packets are widely available, and bouillon cubes can be used to enhance the taste of a quick gravy. But BOU’s ability to closely capture the texture of homemade gravy sets it apart from other instant packages. Plus, each container comes with six cubes, ensuring that you’ll be able to make gravy for several meals. (Which means anything from easy gravy to top off weeknight mashed potatoes to a fast but rich sauce to bind the contents of your next chicken pot pie.) In sampling the available varieties, we found chicken and mushroom to be the best flavors. The mushroom was most impressive in that it did not taste overly of mushrooms; surprisingly, it provided a more savory, beefy flavor than the brown gravy.
BOU’s gravy cubes do speed the process of making gravy along, but they still require a bit of stovetop attention. The company recommends making the gravy by mixing a half cup of water and a cube in a saucepan until the cube dissolves. In our experiments, this was the ideal method, although the cubes also dissolved and made a decent gravy when added to water that had been heated in an electric kettle. Still, the gravy was much smoother when made in the saucepan, so this isn’t a gravy you could easily whip up in the microwave.
BOU’s cubes are as close as a home cook can get to homemade quality without using animal fat and flour. And at just over $4 per container, these gravy cubes are affordable enough to earn a spot in your pantry. The next time you’re dreading the process of making gravy to finish off a dish, try reaching for a cube instead. You’ll find that you still get a quality meal finisher, without having to fret over whether the sauce will thicken correctly.