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.