Biscuits and Sausage Gravy - Ninja Foodi Style

Loving the versatility of this Ninja Foodi.  I made Saturday Morning Breakfast in it today and it was delicious.  Hubby LOVED it.  The best thing about it was cooking everything in one pot ... including the biscuits.

The Ninja Foodi Cookbook includes a recipe for this but I didn’t go strictly by it.  It called for a tablespoon of *salt and two teaspoons of *black pepper.  Since I used hot sausage, I sprinkled just a bit of black pepper and added a dash of salt.

The sausage already has salt in it and the cheese that is stuffed into the biscuits also has salt (cheese usually tastes a bit salty to me).  I felt the only need for the salt was to season the all-purpose flour and the milk that is added to the sausage to make the gravy.

Ninja Foodi Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Pkg (12 oz) uncooked ground breakfast sausage, crumbled
1 teaspoon kosher salt (*see note above)
2 teaspoons black pepper (*see note above)
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 cups whole milk
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tube (16.3 ounces) refrigerated biscuit dough

Directions:

Select SEAR/SAUTE and set to HIGH.  Select START/STOP to begin.  Allow to preheat for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, add the sausage, *salt, and *pepper to the pot.  Cook for 5 minutes, or until sausage browns, breaking it apart with a wooden spoon as it cooks.

Add the butter and melt completely.  Then add flour and stir to combine.  Cook for 2 minutes, then whisk in milk.  Bring to a simmer, then cook for 5 minutes, or until thickened.

While gravy is cooking, gently separate biscuits and fill each with cheddar cheese, sandwich style.

Coat the reversible rack with cooking spray, making sure rack is in the lower position.  Place stuffed biscuits on rack.  Once gravy has thickened, lower rack with biscuits into pot.

Close crisping lid.  Select BAKE/ROAST, set temperature to 325F, set time to 15 minutes. Select START/STOP to begin.

When cooking is complete, remove rack and biscuits.  Transfer biscuits to a serving platter or a plate and top with gravy.  Serve immediately.

I prepped by biscuits before I started the cooking process of the sausage so that they would be ready to place in the pan after the gravy had thickened.  Also, I used slices of sharp cheddar cheese rather than the shredded cheddar cheese.  I cut each square of cheese into 4 squares and inserted one square into each biscuits.

Food Processor Biscuits

For years I've tried to perfect homemade biscuits but was never able to get them to look or taste like the ones my mother made.  She has this big bowl that she keeps her self-rising flour in, makes a well in the center and puts a chunk of lard and milk in it to work it into a dough.  After her dough comes together, she kneads it a few times, then pinches the dough into little clumps, then rolls each one into balls, flattens them into discs, places them in a greased biscuit pan. After she has placed them all in the pan, she takes her hand and gives them another press down, places them in a 450 degre oven and bakes them.  During the last couple of minutes in the oven, she turns the oven to broil to brown them.

I love watching cooking shows on TV and YouTube and ran across a YouTube Video with instructions for making biscuits in a food processor.  I followed the instructions and loved the results.

Buttermilk Biscuits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
• 6 tbsp of butter
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 
  

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Add dry ingredients to food processor and pulse 4-5 times to combine.
3. Cut butter into pats and place on top of flour mixture in food processor. Pulse 5-6 times to incorporate. Do not over mix. 
4. Add buttermilk and pulse just until dough forms... About 9-10 pulses... Do not over-mix. 
5. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Shape into a ball and roll to desired thickness. 
6. I used my cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits then re-worked the remaining dough and made a bread stick. 
7.  Place biscuits on a lightly greased pan (I use a parchment paper lined pan instead). 

I probably left my biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but I do like my biscuits brown.  They were still good and my husband loved them.

Update: The recipe above calls for buttermilk and I don't always have buttermilk in my fridge.  I decided to purchase a container of the powdered buttermilk and try it.  There is a definite difference in the final outcome.  I added 3 tablespoons of the buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients in the food processor and added 3/4 cups of water in step 4.  I think I will add a little less water the next time because my dough was a bit too sticky and I had to incorporate more flour than I wanted to.  When I finally got the dough to the consistency that I wanted.  I squeezed off clumps of dough (just like my mother does), rolled them into balls, patted them into discs and placed on a parchment paper lined cast iron pan.  

Again, I left the biscuits under the broiler a tad too long but they, other than that, they were tender, soft and delicious. I don't know whether the powdered buttermilk made the difference or not.  I'll have to give each method another try to see but, as I stated earlier, I will use less water when using the powdered buttermilk.  

Breakfast at Home

There was a time when I really dreaded cooking but now I love it.  I ran across a recipe for homemade biscuits using my food processor and it is a really great recipe.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
6 Tbsps cold butter cut into 3/4" pieces
3/4 cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425.  Lightly grease baking pan or line baking pan with parchment paper.

Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt to food processor and pulse 4-5 times.
Add butter to dry mixture and
pulse 5-6 times (about 1 second per
pulse).
Add buttermilk and process until it forms a ball (about 9-10 pulses... do not over process).
On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to about 3/4" thick and cut out using cookie cutter
Place biscuits on baking sheet and bake until golden brown (10-12 minutes).