Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara logo

Hamburger Steak with Rice & Gravy

First question (and probably last question for this post): Do you eat rice and gravy and in general, where do you live? You can say the state or just northwest or southeast. Thank you.

I love hamburger steak with rice and gravy. We’ve been eating cauliflower rice and I told Vince . I have to have real rice with the hamburger steak. He still wanted cauliflower rice so I fixed both. I could eat rice and gravy every day . . just so it’s brown gravy and not milk gravy. I was telling Vince at lunch that almost every time I mention rice and gravy, there’s someone who tells me they’ve never had rice with gravy and he doesn’t believe me . . hence, the question. Growing up in southwest Louisiana, I didn’t think about it as a kid but later realized we had rice with almost every meal. Most of the time it was rice and gravy but sometimes it was creole over rice, gumbo over rice, rice dressing. Mom did make a rice salad with black olives and it was good. Dad raised quail and when we had quail, we had wild rice with mushrooms. That was a luxury, even though they came out of a can.

One thing I’ve learned from keto recipes is to thick gravy with cream cheese and I like that. I didn’t take pictures of our dinner but I added garlic scapes to the gravy.

We also had zucchini and a salad. I fixed enough of everything to have leftovers . . except for the zucchini. I usually don’t reheat the same leftovers the next day but I asked Vince if he would mind and he said no, he doesn’t mind. Did I say how much I love hamburger steak with rice and gravy? 🙂

We will have the leftover cream of barley for breakfast so it looks like a cross stitching day for me! 🙂

I do still have some tomatoes to get planted but since it rained almost an inch yesterday, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it. I do need to get it done. Ughh . . I have to do the weed eating in the back yard today . . that’s going to cut into my cross stitching time but at least dinner is ready!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I am from NW PA and grew up in New England. I like rice and do eat it with gravy most of the time, but also like it with butter or in soup. We sometimes have it with ground beef and kidney beans in brown gravy over the top. Also with creamed chicken. Nothing too spicy here.

  2. I LOVE rice and gravy,. I’m in Houston, raised by parents from Arkansas, so that is a staple with us. I also love rice in general with all kinds of other meals, fixed with other things.

    • I knew there had to be some “normal” eaters out there! 🙂

  3. We have rice mostly with a stir-fry type meal. I’ll eat leftover rice with butter. The hubs likes leftover rice with sugar.

  4. I grew up eating mostly mashed potatoes with milk gravy in Texas. My dad was a meat and potatoes guy, lots of chicken fried steak or fried chicken and mashed potatoes. When we moved to Louisiana and I married there, I switched to rice and gravy because that is what my husband likes. I do like it. Growing up, we ate rice with butter, sugar and cinnamon. My mom also had a recipe for rice that used Monterrey jack cheese, sour cream and banana peppers that was really good.

    • The cheese, sour cream and peppers sounds good. I cannot eat rice with sugar . . that seems so wrong to my taste buds.

      • My Dad would eat rice with sugar and cinnamon. But mostly we had meat and potatoes for dinner/supper in Mn.

        • Katie — same here. Growing up we would occasionally have rice with milk, sugar and cinnamon on a Sunday night when my mom didn’t want to cook.

          I’m in Minnesota, and it’s much more meat and potatoes than rice. I’m not much of a rice eater, I rarely make it at home.

  5. Didn’t eat rice and gravy as a child in Arkansas–potatoes and gravy but not rice. Don’t eat rice and gravy in Montana or Arizona. Mike isn’t a rice fan–he will eat it with something like shrimp etouffee or jambalaya.

  6. I eat rice but not gravy. Didn’t have it growing up in the North west.

  7. We have rice with Chinese dishes, stuffed peppers, and mixed vegetables. Especially when we’re cooking on the Blackstone grill! We both grew up with meat and potato meals. Now it seems we eat less potatoes and more veggies with our meals, ?.
    I love your blog Judy. I started reading it when you and Jo had the first Blessings cross stitch sew along!
    We even started using the grow bags in our garden! Are you planting in your white buckets this year?
    Thanks for your blog!

    • I did plant in the white buckets this year. Last year I didn’t have a single tomato on any of my plants (they were all in buckets). This year, I had intended to plant all the tomatoes in bags but then I ran out of bags. I hated to use the buckets after last year’s results (but no one I knew had good tomatoes last year) so I ended up planting about half a dozen of them in buckets. Guess which plant had the first tomatoes this year . . one of the ones in a bucket.

  8. My parents are from Michigan and moved to Texas when they married. We did eat some rice and my dad ate it with sugar so I did also. Mostly it was hamburger meat in meals such as sloppy Joe’s or goulash. So much goulash I will not make it or eat it now. Lots of potatoes also with meals. We did have a variety of meals and always had food but just not a lot of extras as we were moderately poor.

  9. This Northern gal does not eat rice and gravy – Vince will say “Y’all ain’t right” but for me rice only belongs with Chinese food (and even then I’m not real fond of it), don’t really care for gravy of any kind, nor pinto beans, grits, greens, okra, biscuits and gravy – I would definitely not survive in the South! 🙂

    • Of all the things you folks in the north do that seems “not right” to me, the rice and gravy thing is just the most weird of all.

  10. I never heard of rice and gravy until you talked about it. I grew up in southern Missouri. My Mom always put milk over the rice when she made it. I hated it that way, and I finally convinced her to leave the milk off (at least on my portion). She also made rice pudding, but we never had it with gravy.

  11. nope, grew up in north Texas and we never had rice (and gravy, or rice at all) growing up. mostly potatoes with gravy. my husband grew up eating rice so I do fix it more – less messy than potatoes anyway. I usually make it with Chinese food but that’s about the only time.

  13. I”m from North Carolina and we have rice and gravy at least 3 times a week. My husband even likes rice and butter at breakfast if we’re out of grits.

    • I’ve never liked milk gravy so when mom or my grandma made milk gravy, I had rice with butter. I haven’t had that since I started cooking. I so rarely make milk gravy but if I do, it’s with mashed potatoes.

  14. I live in Northern California and have eaten rice and gravy all my life….my mom was from Italy so a lot of time we had spaghetti sauce over rice…we did eat a lot of polenta and pasta, but other wise we had rice with gravy. Or rice and butter…

  15. I grew up eating rice but since my mom was Japanese we never had it with gravy, sugar, butter, and she never made rice pudding. My father was from Illinois (across the river from St Louis) and he never added anything to his rice so I’m thinking he didn’t grow up eating rice and gravy. I’ve had it before and thought it was good but isn’t anything with gravy good? lol I prefer mashed potatoes with gravy and I only have that 2-3 times a year. The idea of butter or sugar on rice kind of grosses me out but then I’m sure some of the things I put on rice might gross others out. lol

    • Forgot to add I currently live in Utah but grew up in Japan and a number of states but only lived in the south once (Alabama) for a year as an adult and also spent lots of years in Oklahoma, as an adult where I fell in love with chicken fried steak with white gravy…yum!!

  16. I’m from North Dakota. I eat rice but not with gravy. Gravy is reserved for masked potatoes. Rice is served with stir fry or in pigs in the blanket (ground beef and rice rolled in cabbage leaves smothered in a tomato sauce) or as baked rice with cream, sugar, and raisins. Food is not just ethnic but regional.

  17. I grew up in the Southern Tier of NYS, in the Finger Lakes area. We didn’t have rice a lot growing up, and I don’t remember having gravy on it when we did have it. I think because dad wasn’t a fan, we didn’t eat it much. Now I will eat it together, but we still don’t have it a lot…maybe once a month. And I don’t just fix gravy – there’s got to be meat to go along with it. If there’s no meat, there’s no gravy. Having said that, I’d guess that if hubby had his choice, we’d probably have gravy a whole lot more often! 🙂

    • Yes, I agree. We don’t have gravy unless it’s a meat that makes good gravy.

  18. Grew up in Texas and we had a lot of rice with meals. The leftover rice (generally the little that was left from dinner) became “dessert” – mixed with a little milk, cinnamon and sugar – SO good. If there was a LOT of rice leftover, we would also have it for breakfast (again with the milk, cinnamon and sugar). Rice goes with so many things and is definitely delicious with all gravies or sauces or in soups.

  19. Yes, we love hamburger steak with gravy (aka Salisbury steak) and rice. We live in coastal SC, but originally from Southern Maryland and it has always been on the menu at our house

  20. We had rice and we had gravy. We didn’t eat it together growing up. We had mashed potatoes with gravy and bread with gravy. We ate rice with milk and sugar, rice with butter, rice in soup or just all differentkinds of flavored rice and in dishes. I do eat rice with gravy as an adult. I never had thought to put them together until I was an adult. I am from Northern Iowa

  23. We grew up with rice for breakfast with brown sugar and milk. We do eat Hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes, pork steaks with mushroom soup over rice. I’m from Ohio but originally New York.

  24. West Central Illinois here and gravy goes on potatoes. My mother made the best gravy ever and could make it from anything. I do have a couple of rice recipes that have a gravy like sauce with them. Growing up just north of Hannibal, MO we were on the northern edge of where the midwest turns southern.

  25. I grew up in the Piedmont area of North Carolina. We had rice and gravy with hamburger steak. My husband grew up in middle North Carolina, and he liked mashed potatoes with his hamburger steak and gravy. I would fix him mashed potatoes with country fried steak and gravy, but hamburger steak was served with rice and gravy. My grandmother used to serve rice with breakfast — no sugar in it.

  26. Born and bred Tarheel girl,brown gravy and rice are a staple in my house. White or milk gravy is used for sausage gravy and biscuits.

  27. I grew up with a mother who couldn’t cook. Her idea of rice was Minute Rice. I love rice and gravy. When I was a student there was a chinese restaurant that used to sell a bowl of rice with gravy for 50 cents and that was my dinner for many a night. But I do like rice with sugar and cinnamon. I’m married to a half spanish man and he loves rice.

  28. We never had rice for diner my dad didn’t like it. He would eat baked rice pudding but that was it. So not while growing up. My husband loves Chinese food and rice with butter, I have never served rice with gravy but maybe this week. Is hamburger steak the same as salisbury steak. If it is different I have never had that either. My Mom would make meatloaf, swedish meatball, itialian meatballs, goulash, creamed hamburger, meat sauce, stuffed peppers salisbury steaks, hamburger soup and once in a while hamburgers. But growing up with not a lot of money hamburger was stretched to feed the six of us.

  29. I was raised in western PA. My mom learned to cook from her Ukrainian mother-in-law, so we mostly had rice in stuffed peppers and stuffed cabbage in tomato sauce. She also made baked rice pudding with cinnamon and raisins. I like just plain rice with butter, also. Since moving to NC, we love rice and gravy but it has to be brown gravy. It’s served as a side dish choice in almost ever restaurant.

    Question for you, Judy? Have you ever had french fries with brown gravy? We used to eat that in PA with open-faced hot roast beef or meatloaf sandwiches. Can’t find that too often in the south. If I order hamburger steak with french fries, I ask for extra gravy on the fries. When I get funny looks, I just tell them it’s a northern thing. LOL

    • I tried fries with brown gravy and I liked them. Maybe I’ll make that this week. Vince isn’t eating carbs (and Judy shouldn’t be) but I have canned potatoes that I cut like fries. I can air fry those and put gravy over them. I have a roast in the slow cooker now . . that will make good gravy.

  30. Yes we eat rice and gravy. Growing up my dad liked his meat and potatoes but toward spring all the potatoes would be gone and we would switch to rice. We would also eat rice as dessert with cinnamon and sugar. I didn’t add milk but sometimes my brother would. I grew up in Portland, OR but my dad was from Kansas and my mom was from Montana. My husband lived all over the place and they always ate some kind of rice with every meal. They were a family with 5 kids so it filled empty stomachs.
    I found that rice and hamburger gravy was a quick meal to fix after working all day.

  31. – Grew up in Seattle with California-raised parents, and I think I can safely say—never! I don’t think I ever heard of it before you. My Michigander husband dumps say sauce on rice unless it has sauce from the meal (usually a tomato-y sauce from chicken) or a mushroom recipe I Finally found that he likes.

  32. Wisconsin girl. Never had gravy on rice. But I am going to try this now. Thanks!

  33. I’m from California and I had also never heard of it before you talked about it. I’m sure I’ve had gravy on rice at some point in my life, but not as a standard thing.

Discover more from Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading