Easy Stuffing Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is homemade stuffing made of? ›

The BEST traditional Thanksgiving Stuffing recipe is easy to make dried bread cubes, sausage, diced vegetables, and chicken broth. It's a great side dish to make ahead of time and it definitely tastes best homemade!

Vegetable broth – To moisten the bread. Eggs – They add richness and moisture, helping to create the stuffing's irresistible gooey center. And sea salt and fresh black pepper – To make all the flavors pop!

The primary difference between stuffing and dressing is that stuffing is cooked inside a bird and dressing is made on the side. As with many food traditions in the U.S., regional loyalties to stuffing vs dressing abound.

The best bread for stuffing is a sturdy loaf with a tight crumb. Bakery French bread, Italian bread, Challah, and Sourdough are all good choices. When you cut up a 1-pound loaf into cubes, it should fit in an even layer on a single half-size rimmed baking sheet.

You want your stuffing moist but not soggy and certainly not dry. The bread in the stuffing absorbs moisture, but if it's dry (as it should be, see above), it takes some time for the liquid to settle in. I suggest adding a little at a time, say 1 cup of broth for every 4 cups of dry mix.

Although most people in America debate on whether the dish should be called stuffing or dressing the people of Pennsylvania call it filling. Essentially filling is the same as stuffing or dressing. The name suggests that it will fill something like stuffing does.

Fully cook raw meat, poultry, or seafood ingredients before adding to stuffing. Combine the ingredients and place them in your bird immediately before cooking. Don't stuff whole poultry with cooked stuffing. In addition to the turkey, the stuffing's center needs to reach 165 F.

The short answer to whether you can making stuffing ahead of time is yes. "Making stuffing ahead saves time, allows stove and oven space for other things, and making it ahead gives time for the flavor to fully develop," Chef David Tiner, Director at Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge, tells Southern Living.

A food thermometer should be used to ensure that the stuffing reaches the safe minimum internal temperature of 165 °F. If the stuffing is inside whole poultry, take the poultry out of the oven and let it stand 20 minutes before removing the stuffing. Refrigerate cooked poultry and stuffing within 2 hours.

So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish. Additionally, dressing, especially in the American South, is often made with cornbread instead of pieces of a baguette or plain ol' white bread.

What is stuffing called in the South? ›

But for the Thanksgiving side dish in the South, the term dressing was adopted in place of stuffing, which was viewed as a crude term, during the Victorian era. Although dressing and stuffing are interchangeable terms, the signature ingredient of this Thanksgiving side dish in the South is cornbread.

Some people make the distinction that dressing is the proper name for the dish when it has been prepared outside of the bird—that is, when it has not been stuffed and cooked inside.

Follow this tip: Stale, dried-out bread makes the best stuffing. Either dry out your bread starting a few days before you plan to make the stuffing by letting it sit out or, if you don't have the extra time, cut the bread into cubes, and then toast over a low heat in the oven until dry.

Spread the cubed bread on top of two cooling racks set in two half-sheet pans. Heat your oven to the lowest setting (typically 150°–200°F) and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until completely dry. If your oven only goes down to, say, 250°, start by baking for 30 minutes, then check the dryness of a cube or two.

Stuffing is a mix of edible ingredients such as herbs, bread and a binder such as egg, traditionally stuffed into a meat cavity before it is cooked. Other ingredients in stuffing might be meat, nuts, butter, chopped vegetables and even fruit or oysters.

Stuffing consists of a mixture of savoury ingredients such as breadcrumbs, herbs, fruit, nuts, sausagemeat and onion which are bound together with egg or liquid to form a semi-solid mixture. It is usually cooked with roast meat such as chicken, pork or lamb and is served as an accompaniment to the sliced, cooked meat.

This stuffing is made on the stove top with oven toasted bread cubes, onion, celery, dried seasonings, butter, and warm chicken broth. The best part is that it frees up oven space because it cooks on the stove top!

Think a big casserole with the flavors of stuffing but instead of bread, it's mostly just ground meat! I use sausage and beef for the meat, and then there is a lot of potato and breadcrumbs to hold everything together. And butter. Lots of butter!