S/O Thanksgiving sides - best stuffing/dressing recipes

Stove Top

I don't have a recipe, but I like the dressing that is heavy on the cornbread. Just bread sometimes is too soggy for me. I also like a heavy sage flavor.

We like a mixture of cornbread and bread dressing with celery, onions, turkey neck meat, cooked in turkey broth seasoned with plain old poultry seasoning. My mom and aunt were in charge of the dressing every year, and it was always made while drinking copious amounts of Bloody Marys. So if yours doesn’t come out right it’s probably because you weren’t drinking enough!

Here’s the basic recipe, there’s a lot of tasting to make sure it’s well seasoned.

CynDixie Dressing

turkey neck
2 turkey drumsticks
stalk of celery, with leaves
2 lg yellow onion
quart chicken or Turkey stock, in case needed
2 boxes Jiffy Yellow Cornbread
½ loaf bread, dried on both sides several days prior
vegetable oil
2 - 4 eggs
poultry seasoning
salt, to taste
pepper, cracked fresh, to taste
Bloody Marys

**_MAKE TURKEY STOCK_**:

Place a turkey neck and a couple of turkey legs in a stock pot. Add a medium/large yellow onion, cut into fourths. Also add 4-5 stalks of celery, being sure to keep the leaves on since they provide lots of flavor. Add water to about 2” from the top, bring to a low boil, then simmer for several hours, reducing the liquid.

After 1 ½ hours, remove the turkey pieces and allow them to cool. Remove the bones, skin and cartilage, and pull meat into small-ish pieces with your hands. Refrigerate. Once the liquid is reduced discard the celery and onion, and strain the liquid through cheesecloth into a container. Refrigerate. Et voila, you have turkey stock


_**MAKE CORNBREAD**_:

Make batter using a basic recipe for cornbread but DO NOT include sugar if the recipe calls for it. Heat 2 T vegetable oil in iron skillet, add batter to hot skillet and bake at temperature on box until slightly browned on top and the cornbread springs back when pushed gently on top. Make two batches. You can wrap them in foil and place them in ziplocs, then freeze them if you make it ahead of time.



_**ASSEMBLE THE DRESSING**_

So now we can assemble the dressing! Saute 1 chopped yellow onion and 3 stalks of chopped celery in butter until translucent. Crumble corn bread and bread into bite-sized pieces, 2 slightly beaten eggs, the turkey meat, the sautéed onion and celery in LARGE container. The lid of an old cake container works well for this.

Add turkey stock gradually until mixture is quite soupy. Add salt, pepper and poultry seasoning to taste (add the poultry seasoning 1/2 tsp at a time to get the taste right). Pour into a large baking dish and bake uncovered at 350 degrees. Start checking for doneness after 30-40 minutes, or when it starts lightly browning. A table knife inserted into it will come out clean when it’s done. Enjoy.

NOTES

Cornbread and stock can be made ahead of time and frozen.

We grew up with my mom using Stove Top. In my family anything other than the same thing we've been having for the past 50+ years is not going to go over well. LOL!

We do sauté up some onions and celery to add, and we bake it in the oven until it's crispy around the edges.

Well I have never had to make it for Thanksgiving. But if I am making it I typically just doctor up a boxed stuffing.  My favorite is Bells (over stove top).

Us, too, but with a little twist. The only thing my MIL made really well was stuffing, but naturally there was a pre-made element. She made Pepperidge Farm stuffing with consomme instead of water and added raisins. I still make it that way and my family. I added nuts a couple of times and my family acted like I'd just slapped the Baby Jesus.

I make the extremely basic dressing that my mom made, but it is what we all love. I have non-meat eaters so I use veggie stock in place of chicken broth.

I always stale my own bread. I used the pre-cubed bread once. It was too hard.

I saute onions and celery in butter. Toss the bread in it. Add salt, pepper, Johnny's seasoning, and milk or stock to moisten. Bake in a pan for 30 minutes at 350. I make 2 batches. Once goes in the bird. One gets baked.

I do my mom's recipe which is a simple bread and sage. Cut up white bread into cubes, dry them. Finely chop and sautee a bunch of onions and celery and the damn turkey giblets (I hate this process and could leave them out, but my parents have to have them). Toss those in with a bunch of sage, a little salt, chicken broth. Add one egg and mix. Toss into casserole and bake with dots of butter on top. Or stuff in the turkey butt.

It is, and I realized when I read this that’s probably why my family used turkey stock in the dressing, to get that flavor without having to stuff the bird. 

This made me laugh.  My father, who loved to cook, always made the stuffing.  His recipe had chopped nuts in it, along with celery, onions, and chopped water chestnuts to give it crunch.  I can’t remember what all went into it.  I know I have it written in my recipe box.  My picky son won’t eat any stuffing other than Grandpa’s stuffing recipe.

Although this is an old thread I thought I would reply.

I could never figure out what my version of stuffing/dressing was missing until we had a potluck at work and one of the older ladies brought the dressing. It was soooo good so I sat down and had her tell me how she made it.

Of course, she didn’t have exact quantity of anything. The most IMPORTANT thing she added was cream of chicken soup and turkey gravy. I think she said she was buying a packet of gravy mix but I just buy the premade turkey gravy from a jar. She mixed those with broth. She makes it the day before so that the broth mix has time to soak in cornbread mix.

My mom always told me to dry out the cornbread as much as possible so that it will absorb the broth so I try to dehydrate my cornbread.

I add a can of creamed corn or if I forget to buy that I have smashed frozen corn too. I add chopped boiled egg whites, onion, celery. And I also add shredded turkey bits from the broth that I make.

I like to buy the Pepperidge farm cornbread but I also make cornbread at home and mix them together.

I don't have the exact quantities of what I use, but I make my own cornbread for dressing. Then I use onions, celery, raw egg, salt, pepper, sage and chicken broth. Then I bake it in a casserole dish. I make the cornbread a day or two before, it's not as good if you make it day of.

Exactly the way I make it but I use Johnny's seasoning.