Thanksgiving stuffing/dressing has quite a bit of controversy surrounding it, doesn’t it? In the bird or out of the bird. With meat or without meat. Dry and crumbly or moist and casserole-like. Simple and classic or full of interesting mix-ins.
With all these dressing variables, I’m not about to pretend that I’ve come up with a dressing recipe that’ll satisfy everyone. I think that’d be as far-fetched as everyone deciding on liking the same pizza toppings. But what I can say is that Babyface and I both raved over this cornbread dressing. And we come from families with mothers who are excellent cooks, stuffing/dressing included. So if we thought this dressing was on par with those family favorites, you know it is something special. It was definitely the star of our Thanksgiving meal.
The recipe calls for already prepared cornbread. I could have provided you with a recipe for cornbread, but honestly, my tippy-top favorite cornbread recipe is Emily’s White Cheddar Yogurt Cornbread recipe. We don’t change a thing. I make it for us about once a week and it worked perfectly in this recipe. Usually, I slightly underbake it so it is nice and moist and gooey, but for this dressing, I overbaked it slightly so it was dry. You want a dry cornbread to absorb all the deliciousness. If you’d like, you can also just bake a pan of cornbread the day before and sit it out on the counter to stale.
I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to convince the fams to replace our traditional dressing recipes with this one, but I can guarantee you that this recipe will become a holiday regular in our house. Heck, it might even become a weekly regular. We’ll just rename it to “Cornbread and Sausage Casserole” and eat it with broccoli.
Cornbread and Sausage Dressing
This Southern twist on a Thanksgiving classic is traditional enough to satisfy the purists and different enough to entertain those eaters seeking a bit more adventure. Make sure to use good cornbread. The quality of the bread makes (or breaks) the dish.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients:
- 1 pound mild pork breakfast sausage
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3/4 cup celery, diced
- 3/4 cup onion, diced
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 teaspoons dried sage
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- Salt and pepper, to taste
- 8 cups cornbread cubes (about 1″)
- 1 cup chicken or veggie broth
- 2 eggs
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the breakfast sausage until cooked through and crumbly. Remove from pan using a slotted spoon and transfer to a plate covered in paper towels to drain. Leave remaining grease in skillet.
- Melt butter in skillet.
- Add celery, onion and garlic and cook until softened, about 4 minutes.
- Add in sausage, sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Cook for 2-3 more minutes. Remove from heat.
- In a large bowl, combine sausage mixture and cornbread cubes until well-mixed.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the broth and eggs.
- Pour the broth/egg mixture over the sausage/cornbread mixture and stir until cornbread has absorbed most of the liquid.
- Pour into a greased baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until top is browned and crunchy.
How do you like your stuffing/dressing?
MY OTHER RECIPES
Add diced apples in with the celery and onions. It’s to die for.
YUM! I thought about doing that, but we already had apples in our brussels sprouts, so I decided one apple-y dish was probably enough. But next time? No doubt!
I’m so glad you posted about forgetting the scale- sorry I’m a day late- but how true!! I finally came to the same conclusion after nearly chucking a whole 18 months of working so hard at the gym… I love your blog!!
Thanks, Gerry! 🙂
hey- having your buttermilk chicken tonight and tried the coor’s pumpkin ale- not very impressed even tho it’s made in my back yard
You mean the Blue Moon pumpkin ale (the one made my Coors)? Beer is such a person choice. 😀
Question – do you think you can make ahead of time – freeze then bake or bake and reheat?
Thanks
Hmmm, I don’t see why not? Although, it might be best to assemble all the dressing parts, freeze that stuff, and then do the broth/egg mixture right before you are going to bake it off. Worth a shot!
Thank you, that what I was thinking.
My mom makes one super similar to this, but without the eggs and she adds apples. Doing a post on it soon. Looks great!
Awesome! I’ve had a few people suggest added apples. Sounds yum!
Add me to the chorus suggesting an appley addition! We’ve been making a stuffing very very similar to this for several years, but with lots of apples thrown in there too. SO GOOD! I usually get lazy and just slice them rather than dicing, but dicing would probably be preferable…
Next time I’ll definitely add apples! (And I’m totally lazy, too.)
do you think this could cook in the crockpot vs. the oven? i really need the oven space for a million other things thanksgiving day.
I don’t see why not! Just keep a close eye on it, you definitely don’t want it to dry out. If you do try it, let me know how it turns out.
This recipe looks AMAZING! I want to try it this week. Does one full recipes of the cornbread equal the 8 cups of cornbread cubes in this dressing recipe? Thanks!
If you use the recipe I link to from Daily Garnish, it ends up being about 3/4 of the batch to make 8 cubes. Hope you love the dressing!
Thanks! I make my grocery lists for the week on Thursdays (today) so I will report back on the deliciousness next week! 🙂
I’m so glad to have found a sausage dressing that does NOT call for fruit.
This is the 3rdd year in a row I have made this dish! My picky family loves it. Maybe next year I’ll try it with the apples too!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanks for this recipe. I have lost my go-to recipe, and this is close to that one (except that it was split between white/corn bread volume which I prefer). Also, I prefer dressing without the fruity, nutty accoutrements. I strayed last year from that preference, and I was not happy!
Fixin’ to get ready for next week….