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Stuffing is my favorite Thanksgiving side dish. Why do we only eat this once a year? It is not that much more difficult than all other sides. It freezes well and pairs perfectly with a variety of meats like pork, duck, and goose.
If you’re nitpicking, “stuffing” goes inside the bird, and “dressing” is served on the side. Forget that. I call this stuffing and I never put anything inside the bird except for herbs and aromatics, it messes up the cooking. Furthermore, when you cook this outside of the bird, you get crispy bits on top. “Dressing”, as far as I’m concerned, is what goes on salad. So I will be calling this “stuffing” even though I don’t recommend stuffing the bird with it.
“Stuffing” is essentially a savory bread pudding. I have made many, many different kinds of “stuffing” as a professional chef, providing catered sides for the Holidays as well as fancy side dishes on the restaurant menu (wild mushroom and leek bread pudding, sausage and chestnut stuffing, etc). This is the recipe that I come back to year after year to make for my own family. It is loosely based on my Grandma Mignon’s stuffing, passed down by my mother and her siblings. The Okie side of the family. Cornbread adds sweetness, bacon adds salt, and a minced mirapoix, herbs, and lots of butter make this dish super comforting, savory, and delicious. And since I can’t leave any recipe alone, I also add a little apple.
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Cornbread and Bacon Stuffing for your Thanksgiving Feast.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
An adaptation of my grandmother’s cornbread stuffing from Oklahoma. You can’t beat this one.
Ingredients
2 cups dry white bread, cubed
7–8 cup cubed day-old cornbread (1 8″x8″ pan)
1 medium onion, minced or 1/4” dice
2 celery stalks, minced or 1/4” dice
1 large carrot, minced or 1/4” dice
1/2 lb bacon diced (ideally dry-cured slab bacon, 1/4″ dice)
2 1/2 cups very flavorful chicken/turkey broth (preferably-home made)*
2 T butter
2 eggs beaten
1 T fresh thyme leaves
1/2 T fresh minced sage
1 medium apple, 1/4″ dice
salt and pepper to taste
paprika for sprinkling
Instructions
In a large frying pan, fry the bacon until starting to become crispy and fat is rendered. Add onions, celery, carrot and diced apple and sauté until the vegetables are tender about 5 minutes.
Add the butter, chicken broth, and herbs and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat. Taste the mixture. It should be so flavorful and delicious that you want to pour yourself a cup of it and drink it down. Add salt and pepper as needed to get it to that point. See note**
Allow this mixture to cool for about 15 minutes. Then slowly add, while whisking, a ladleful to the beaten eggs. Then add the tempered egg mixture slowly back into the broth-veggie-bacon mixture.
Oil/butter a 9″x13″ baking dish. Spread out the day-old bread, mixing the white bread evenly with the cornbread. Handle the cornbread very gently as will completely crumble into a fine crumb if you are not careful.
Pour the broth-veggie-bacon mixture over the bread. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Very gently, with your hands, fold it to evenly distribute all the ingredients. Sprinkle the top with paprika and chopped herbs. Let it sit for another 5-10 minutes before baking or for as long as a day or two (if you want to prep ahead of time – always a good idea for Thanksgiving).
Preheat oven to 350 and bake until hot all the way through, when a butterknife inserted into the middle comes out hot. For a single batch that’s about 30-40 minutes, uncovered, in a 9×13″ baking dish. For a double batch, that is 45-60 minutes in a 9×13″ baking dish. If you like a less-dry stuffing, start with it covered with tinfoil and uncover it for the last 10-15 minutes.
Dish up and Enjoy!
Notes
*You can mince the onion, celery, and carrot by hand or chop coarsely and pulse in a food processor until somewhere between a mince and a 1/4″ dice. I usually use the food processor for this.
** I make unseasoned (no salt) stock/broth at home and always have some in the freezer. I generally like to use no salt broth because it makes it more versatile for reductions. I add salt to the finished product. Store-bought chicken broth is may be “reduced-sodium”. If you are using no-salt or reduced-salt broth in this recipe plan on adding a good amount of salt to this dish. The brothy mix should be very well seasoned, almost bordering on too salty by itself.
Thank you.for sharing this recipe! Can’t wait to make it this year for Thanksgiving!
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