Recipe: Southern Style Cornbread Stuffing or Dressing
Seriously. What is it really called? Stuffing or Dressing and does anyone other than me really care? Well, one thing I do care about is a good holiday meal and for me dressing and stuffing are always tops on my list of must haves. Over the last 15 year or so, my family has fallen into the same comfortable foods we have always had so this year, I wanted to mix it up a bit with a cornbread stuffing. I have had cornbread stuffing in the past and frankly I have not been very impressed with it. I hear a lot of people, however, rave about the flavor virtues of cornbread stuffing and since we live in the south, I thought I would give it a try and see how it turned out.
To begin with, I make my own chicken stock. I cannot tell you how much better homemade stock is until you try it. Once you do, you will never go back. I learned how to make this at another wonderful website called 100 Days of Real Food. The link to the actual chicken stock recipe is . If you do not have the time or the inclination to do this, then I recommend and organic brand of chicken stock with no MSG like Kitchen-Basics Organic Chicken Stock. I also backed off on the chicken stock and just used 6 cups. If you like your stuffing more moist then you can try the 7 cups but even when re-heating in the microwave, it was still moist and wonderful. I would play it by ear; if you use really thick slices of white bread, you might need more stock.
For the white bread, I went to the local bakery and bought a loaf of Italian bread.I also cut the sage and the poultry seasoning and used one of my own seasoning creations that is based on Emeril’s Bayou Blast so again, if it is easier, you can simply purchase the spice.
This recipe is based on Paula Dean’s Southern Cornbread Stuffing and I followed the recipe pretty closely but I replaced the poultry spice with my own southern spice mix.
Souther Style Cornbread Stuffing or Dressing
Ingredients
- Skillet Corn Bread
- 7 slices oven-dried white bread
- 1 sleeve saltine crackers
- 8 tbls butter
- 2 cups celery chopped
- 1 large onion chopped
- 7 cups chicken stock
- 1 tsp salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp sage optional
- 1 tbsp GeekBone's Southern Flair Spice Mix
- 5 eggs beaten
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- 2. In a large bowl, combine crumbled cornbread, dried white bread slices, and saltines; set aside.
- 3. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and onion and cook until transparent, approximately 5 to 10 minutes.
- 4. Pour the vegetable mixture over cornbread mixture. Add the stock, mix well, taste, and add salt, pepper to taste, sage, and poultry seasoning. Add beaten eggs and mix well. Reserve 2 heaping tablespoons of this mixture for the giblet gravy.
- 5. Pour mixture into a greased pan and bake until dressing is cooked through, about 45 minutes. Serve with turkey as a side dish.