It’s true…
This is the first time I’ve ever made stuffing. I’ve never attempted it as my mother’s stuffing is so damn good and I wouldn’t want to compete with it.
But, I hosted a belated Thanksgiving at my place with my man last weekend and we created a deliciously epic stuffing. I was quite impressed with my skills, and based on the silence of our guests chewing away (and the little leftovers we had), it’s fair to say that everyone enjoyed it!
So, it was a stuffing success!
I’m excited to share the recipe with you and hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
I decided to make a stove top stuffing as it takes longer for the turkey to cook and can potentially dry it out a little when cooked inside. I kept hearing mixed reviews on this! Some like it stuffed in the turkey, others prefer separate. How do you make your stuffing?
I thought about going gluten free on this one, but decided to use an organic french loaf fresh from the bakery. To me, it made sense to go full out and stick to a simple and basic recipe as much as possible. So, it’s not gluten free. But I did use all organic ingredients and a local grass fed sausage.
You can make this recipe vegan by taking out the sausage and using vegetable broth in place of chicken broth.
So here’s how I did it…
- 1 large french loaf with crust on (sliced, then added to food processor to make into 1inch crumbs). You should have approximately 8-10 cups of bread.
- Half a stick of butter
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 celery stalks, chopped
- 1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
- 1 apple, roughly chopped into 1 inch pieces
- 1 1/2 cups cured summer sausage, chopped into 1 inch pieces (optional)
- 3 tbsp fresh sage, chopped
- 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, stems removed
- sea salt and pepper
- 1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock
- Heat oven to 375F and grease a 9x13 pan with 2 tablespoons of butter.
- In a large pot, melt the remaining butter over medium-low heat. Once it's melted, add the onion and celery, stirring occasionally, 3-5 minutes.
- Once vegetables have softened, add in apple, walnuts and sausage, stirring for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the breadcrumbs, fresh herbs, sea salt and pepper.
- Mix until the bread is well incorporated and slightly softened. The bread will be slightly wet but not soggy.
- Stir in 1 cup of chicken stock and stir. If the stuffing looks too dry, add in remaining 1/2 cup of stock. (I used all the stock - 1 and 1/2 cups).
- Adjust seasonings if necessary and stir once more.
- Transfer the stuffing to the prepare pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until top is nice and golden.
- Cool, cover with foil and let sit out on the counter.
- Once completed cooled off, transfer stuffing to the fridge.
- You can leave this in the fridge overnight and cook the next day in the oven at 375 for 15-20 minutes to heat, or I prepared mine in the morning, and just before my guests arrived, I popped it into the oven to heat up. 15-20 minutes should do the trick.
