This homemade stuffing recipe is the classic holiday side dish you are looking for! Passed down through generations and featuring simple ingredients with perfect poultry seasoning flavour. Stuff your turkey, chicken, or just make a large pan full and bake separately.
If you’re looking for a classic homemade bread stuffing recipe, look no further! My mom’s recipe is so easy to make and is the perfect side dish for a delicious turkey dinner over the holidays.
Our family loves stuffing so much, I always make a pan of it to go alongside a bowl of Spinach Stuffing Balls and the Green Bean Casserole.
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My Mom’s Homemade Bread Stuffing Recipe
Today I’m so pleased to share my mom’s Homemade Bread Stuffing recipe with you. It’s such a classic side dish made with simple ingredients but it’s the perfect side dish alongside a roasted turkey or chicken dinner.
The aroma that fills your home as it cooks is unmistakable to anyone who visits. Breathe deeply and enjoy the mouthwatering scent of classic bread stuffing as it bakes inside or alongside your main.
What Ingredients Are in This Homemade Stuffing Recipe?
This stuffing is a very basic recipe made with six ingredients plus seasonings. All you need is a loaf of bread, some celery and onion, chicken stock, and butter.
What makes this stuffing so very delicious is a good amount of poultry seasoning and aromatics such as celery and onions.
Poultry seasoning is a blend of herbs and spices that includes a combination of dried ground sage, savoury, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, black pepper, and nutmeg.
Ground cloves and either celery seed or salt may also be a part of the blend.
If it’s been a while since you’ve replaced the poultry seasoning, I highly recommend buying a new tin of this holiday essential. Fresh spices make for the most aromatic stuffing.
What Bread is Best For This Homemade Stuffing Recipe?
In short, you can use any bread you like in stuffing as long as it’s stale. I prefer whole wheat or sometimes white bread in my stuffing.
Bread with seeds or seasonings may change the flavour of the stuffing and sourdough makes the stuffing taste too sour.
Cornbread stuffing is absolutely delicious as well, especially when it also contains sausage.
Making stuffing is a great way to use up the ends or heels of bread. Start collecting unused bread a few weeks before you intend to make it so it can dry out.
Tear the bread up into smaller pieces and let it dry out in a pan on top of your fridge.
If you forget and are stuck for time, tear a loaf of bread into pieces and dry them out in your oven. If the bread isn’t dry, you may end up with overly mushy stuffing and the texture can be quite off-putting.
How To Make Perfect Homemade Stuffing
Once you have all the stale bread ready to go, you’re ready for the next step; the vegetables. I like to small dice my onion and celery before I sauté them in butter.
Sautéing the vegetables until they become soft and translucent is very important step. If you skip it, you’ll end up with crunchy, uncooked vegetables in the finished dish.
To finish, add the poultry seasoning and sauté for a minute or two for maximum flavour. Next, add the vegetables to the torn bread then season with salt and pepper.
Lastly, drizzle melted butter and chicken broth over the bread mixture and mix well.
Test the moisture level by gripping a handful of the mixture. If it clumps together, it’s perfect. If not, just add a bit more plain water or stock until it begins to stick together.
Variations on Homemade Stuffing
This is a very basic recipe and many people often add other ingredients to suit their personal tastes.
Some enjoy the texture that nuts or water chestnuts bring to the dish, or the flavour of dried cranberries.
Adding proteins such as sausage, turkey giblets, and even oysters are also popular. I’ve never had oyster stuffing but I bet it’s delicious!
How to Store and Reheat Leftover Stuffing
On the rare occasion we have leftover stuffing, I store it in either a plastic bag or lidded container. It should last for up to 5 days when stored in this way.
The easiest way to reheat it is to pop it into the microwave for 1 or 2 minutes. Alternatively, reheat it stove top in a frying pan or in a foil covered casserole in a 350 F oven for 10-15 minutes.
This homemade stuffing recipe is the classic holiday side dish you are looking for! Passed down through generations and featuring simple ingredients with the perfect poultry seasoning flavour. Stuff your turkey, chicken, or just make a large pan full and bake separately.
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time45 minutes
Total Time1 hour5 minutes
Ingredients
1 loaf bread; torn into 1-2 cm pieces and dried overnight.
4 sticks green celery (preferably with some leaves); finely diced
1 medium onion; finely diced
1/2 cup unsalted butter; melted
1/2 cup chicken stock
poultry seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
The night before, tear up the bread and let it dry out on the counter overnight.
In the morning, sauté the celery and onion until they become soft and the onion becomes translucent.
Place bread, vegetables, butter, stock, and poulty seasoning in a large bowl and season. Mix it up well and place in a 9x12 glass baking dish. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 350 F for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove foil and broil until the top becomes golden.
Notes
If you want to use this stuffing in a turkey, please refer to this Turkey post for cooking times.
Nutritional calculation was provided by Nutritionix and is an estimation only. For special diets or medical issues please use your preferred calculator.
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Fruit, especially dried fruit like raisins, cranberries, figs and apricots can seriously improve a dreary box of stuffing. That bit of sweetness plays beautifully with other flavors on the table. I've found that fresh fruits like apples and pears are stellar as well.
The earliest documentary evidence is the Roman cookbook, Apicius De Re Coquinaria, which contains recipes for stuffed chicken, dormouse, hare, and pig. Most of the stuffings described consist of vegetables, herbs and spices, nuts, and spelt (a cereal), and frequently contain chopped liver, brains, and other organ meat.
The most important ingredient of stuffing may be the binder, which keeps all the other elements in place. For a fluffy texture, use eggs. Stock is the most-used binder. Less conventional possibilities include fruit juice (such as apple or orange) and alcohol (wine or liqueur).
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.
Typically, baking the stuffing inside the bird helps keep the mixture moist. “I prefer stuffing (in the bird) to dressing (outside of the bird) because all those delicious drippings that come off the turkey gets absorbed right into the stuffing,” Bamford says.
Homemade stock is the best, but if you don't have homemade, a good store bought stock will work as well. If you use a store bought stock, try to buy one with no/low sodium. I personally have started using bone broth in my stuffing and LOVE it.
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. Give it a good stir, then let it sit for a minute. The stuffing should be moist but not wet.
If the stuffing came out too wet and soggy (aka bread soup!) try not to over mix it, otherwise it'll turn into mush. Curtis Stone says to pour it on a large sheet tray and spread it out. Bake it on high heat to crisp it up, but make sure it doesn't burn.
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.
Bread: This old-fashioned turkey dressing recipe starts with lightly toasted white bread. Butter: Butter adds moisture, richness, and flavor. Vegetables: You'll need one chopped onion and two stalks of chopped celery for flavor and texture. Broth: Chicken broth keeps the stuffing moist without making it soggy.
Stuffing and dressing are commonly used as different names for the same thing—a dish consisting of bits of bread (or other starchy things) and various seasonings. The dish can be made by stuffing it (hence the name) inside a turkey or other bird that will be roasted, or by baking or cooking it separately.
There's nothing better than soft, fresh bread—except for when it comes to stuffing. If you want your stuffing to hold up and not end up a soupy, soggy mess, make sure your bread is dried out or staled for a few days.
Absolutely. Most Thanksgiving stuffing recipes can be made at least partially in advance since: A) They're easily assembled a day or two ahead of Thanksgiving Day; and B) They're often baked using a two-step process (once covered with foil to cook through, then uncovered to achieve a crispy top).
"Stuffing is cooked in the cavity of the turkey, so the juices soak into the ingredients, making it more flavorful.Dressing gets cooked on its own and needs extra liquid to make it flavorful." So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish.
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! Pair this easy homemade stuffing with our popular turkey recipe, homemade rolls, and Thanksgiving pie.
Thanksgiving Stuffing 2 Boxes Stovetop Stuffing 1 Stick Garlic & Herb Butter Diced Celery, Carrots and Onions 1 Tbsp minced Garlic 3 Cups Chicken Broth 1 Jar Turkey Gravy 4 slices of cornbread Prepare stove top stuffing according to box instructions but add in half of the garlic and herb butter Soften carrots, onions ...
The term dressing, per the History Channel, originated around the 1850s, when the Victorians deemed stuffing too crude for the dish to be named. This happened around the same time that the term “dark meat” began to refer to chicken legs and thighs.
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