It is far from unpleasant how the bitter coffee combines with the sweet, smokey fat, and it is considerably superior to simply dumping the pan drippings over your dish.
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Total Time: | 30 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- ½ cup chopped fatty ham scraps
- 4 (1/4 inch thick) slices ham
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
- 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
- ⅔ cup brewed coffee
Instructions
- Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook and stir ham scraps until browned, about 5 minutes. Remove to a plate, reserving the grease in the pan.
- Place ham slices in the pan and cook over medium heat until browned, about 5 minutes on each side. Season both sides with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Remove ham and reserve on a plate.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and sprinkle flour over the pan drippings. Cook and stir for 2 minutes. Increase heat to medium-high and pour in coffee into the pan. Cook and stir until combined and thickened. Season to taste. Return ham to the pan to warm through.
Reviews
I put a little butter in the skillet right before adding ham bits. Honey baked ham is perfect for this. I then sprinkle the ham lightly with a little dark brown sugar. When you flip the ham the brown sugar will glaze the pan and the ham and darken nicely. I then remove the ham and quickly fry couple eggs over easy. The eggs will pick up a beautiful brown color. Remove the eggs and immediately add your black coffee. Stir until pan is deglazed and pour gravy over eggs, ham and grits. I’m in south Louisiana now and most people here have never heard of red-eyed gravy.
Really great! My changes were instead of using ham slice, I trimmed fat off my ham after I baked it and rendered the fat in a pan.. I removed the large pieces once rendered and proceeded with remaining recipe as directed…. OMGYUM
Omg
Easy to make, and yes, taste and season as you go. This recipe is really delicious!
I made this for left over ham. The gravy added a new taste element so it wasn’t the same old ham.
I’m from NC and grew up on red eye gravy. My grandma made this a lot. It was different than this recipe though. She just cooked country ham till it was a little browned and crispy on the edges, long enough to render the fat. Next she would add coffee to the pan and a pinch of sugar. Never saw her add anything else. My grandfather would add some hot sauce when it was on his plate. It’s really simple but the sweet, salty and coffee flavor served with grits, scrambled eggs and homemade biscuits. Man! it was good. I still make it sometimes but it never taste as good as hers did.
You need to add salt to ham steaks. This is not Country Ham folks! To separate this gravy from the rest, add 1/3 cup of strong black coffee and 1/3 cup of coke. (not diet) A secret of small Diners across the South.
It was to soooo good!! Thank you so much for finally explaining it clearly. I can’t believe I have never tried this before. I only wish it had made more. I would like to try to figure out a way to make more, Hogs just don’t have a lot of fat on them these days. I am married to a farmer. I left out the cayenne because the farmer can’t take spice, but I bet it’s awesome with it. Next time i would probably add more fat to possibly double in the end? i had to add water a couple of times during the browning of the ham by the way. I just used a slice of ham which might be part of the lack of fat problem. Anyway it was worth it and i will do it every time I make a slice of ham or a whole ham. Just amazing. Even Farmer Brown liked it and his palette is plain, lol Thank you so much for sharing!
Best ham I’ve had since i was a kid. Gravy is what gave it the good flavor and added to the tenderness of the meat. Gravy was easy to make. Good recipe.
Wow, some of the replies or reviews are crazy. Chef John states that this is not the “original” red eye gravy. But he knows how to make something delicious. I followed it to the letter and it was great. C’mon, it’s just a sauce. I will definitely make again with a little flour. Thickens it beautifully.
First, this isn’t true red eye gravy but that’s not worth a low rating. There should be no flour at all in red-eye gravy. However, you can’t do this gravy without using country ham/picnic ham. This is just nowhere near as good a finished product as it ought to be.
My wife loved this recipe! It’s very tasty.
I personally use country ham only! No other versions of ham will make red eye correctly. Get familiar with the saltiness of your ham, as they vary. May need to rinse if too salty AFTER cooking. Real country ham doesn’t take long to cook at all. That being said, I personally use bacon drippings to start with, in order to have grease at the end. Ham will flavor bacon fat.Cook ham in bacon grease and pour grease into bowl afterwards. Pour strong black coffee into the iron skillet, I hope you are using. Reduce and sometimes I add a pinch of brown sugar. Pour into bowl, and pour reserved grease in that. Grease will float to the top, this the name red eye. Over CRISP biscuits are my favorite.
I’d never had red eye gravy before. It was very different. My husband (the coffee fiend) absolutely loved it. The cayenne pepper helped with the bitterness of the coffee. I used a ham steak, and it didn’t have a lot of fat on it, but there was enough grease to make sauce. Personally, I wouldn’t have wanted more gravy than that. It was fast and easy. Although I wouldn’t make it again just for myself, I will eat it when I make it again for him.
Very good. It was a bit spicy… I loved it, but a bit much for my wife!
If you want to cut down on saltiness, soak in some Coca-Cola! This is a country ham recipe not reg. ham!
The country ham my husband bought was very salty. I didn’t add any seasonings because I knew the ham had enough flavor. The next time I would rinse off the ham with water.
Very disappointing recipe. Red Eye Gravy is made from the drippings of country (salt-cured) ham. It’s not just red gravy. Country ham is not for wimps. You either love it or can’t stand it. Hoping some old Dixie gal will post her authentic method.
This must be the “Yankee Version”….it’s not bad, but it’s not Red Eye Gravy! Real Southern-Style Red Eye Gravy does not have flour or added oil. It’s basically just ham grease (cooked off a good country ham) and black coffee. Maybe a little water to stretch it a bit. And it must be served with hot grits and homemade Buttermilk Biscuits! Apple Butter and Fried Eggs, optional! Boy, I miss my grandmother. She made the BEST breakfasts! 🙂
I always make changes, I cook for 40 Seniors every day. But this is a great base idea. I use really strong french roast, and sea salt. I also used honey ham.
Gray.