Cornbread Stuffing (Southern Cornbread Dressing)
Cornbread stuffing, which the American South calls cornbread dressing, is a baked Thanksgiving side dish of dried cornbread, onion, celery, butter, sage and chicken broth, bound with egg and served next to the roast turkey. This one bakes in its own 23×33 cm dish and not inside the bird: the USDA advises cooking stuffing separately so the centre reliably reaches 74°C (165°F), and a dish gives you a browned crust that a turkey cavity never will. You soften the vegetables in butter, fold them into the cornbread with egg and broth, then bake under foil and finish uncovered. The cornbread has to be dried in the oven first, 40 to 50 minutes at 165°C, which is easiest the day before and is not counted in the 95 minutes.
Ingredients
- 750 gcornbread
- 250 gyellow onion
- 150 gcelery
- 2 clovesgarlic
- 2 eggs
- 115 gunsalted butter
- 1 tbspfresh sage
- 1 tspfresh thyme leaves
- 1 tspfine salt
- 0.5 tspblack pepper
- 600 mlchicken broth
Method
- Dry the cornbread, ideally the day before. Heat the oven to 165°C (325°F), cut the cornbread into pieces of about 2 cm and spread them over two baking trays, crumbs included. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, turning the pieces two or three times, until they are dry and lightly browned at the edges; a cooled piece should snap, not squash. Fresh cornbread is full of moisture and falls apart into porridge the moment broth touches it, while dry pieces soak the broth up like a sponge and keep their shape.
- Cook the vegetables. Chop the onion and celery into 5 mm dice and mince the garlic, sage and thyme. Melt 100 g of the butter in a wide frying pan over medium heat, add the onion, celery and half of the salt, and cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring now and then, until soft and translucent but not browned. Add the garlic, sage and thyme, stir for 1 minute until fragrant and take the pan off the heat. The vegetables will not soften any further in the oven, so they must be tender now.
- Heat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and grease a 23×33 cm baking dish with a little of the remaining butter. Tip the dried cornbread into your largest bowl and scrape the vegetables over it with every drop of butter from the pan. Fold together with a spatula or your hands, gently, so the pieces stay whole.
- Whisk the eggs with 400 ml of the broth, the rest of the salt and the pepper. The broth must be cold or lukewarm, because hot broth cooks the egg into threads. Pour the liquid evenly over the cornbread, fold a few times and leave for 10 minutes, turning the mixture gently every 2 or 3 minutes. The egg is what holds the stuffing together: it sets in the oven, so you can lift out a spoonful that keeps its shape and not a heap of wet crumbs.
- Now adjust the moisture. Press a piece between your fingers: it should be soft and wet right through, and the mixture should glisten. Add the remaining broth about 50 ml at a time, folding and waiting a minute after each addition, and stop when a little liquid just starts to collect at the bottom of the tilted bowl and is absorbed again within a minute. Most cornbread takes 500 to 550 ml in total, so you may not need all of it. Too little broth gives dry crumbs, too much gives a dense pudding, and that is why the broth goes in gradually.
- Spoon the mixture into the dish and level it without pressing down, since a packed layer bakes heavy. Dot the top with the remaining butter and cover the dish tightly with foil. Put it in the oven straight away and bake for 30 minutes. Under the foil the stuffing steams, heats through and the egg sets before the top has a chance to dry out.
- Take off the foil, raise the oven to 220°C (425°F) and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is golden brown and the edges are crisp. A thermometer pushed into the centre must read 74°C (165°F); if it does not, give it 5 more minutes. Let the dish stand for 10 minutes so the stuffing firms up, then serve it from the dish with a large spoon.
FAQ
They are the same dish under two names. The USDA notes that Americans call it stuffing, filling or dressing depending on the region, and in the South dressing is the usual word, also when nothing gets stuffed. Strictly speaking, stuffing goes into the bird and dressing is baked next to it in a dish. The USDA recommends the dish 'for optimal safety and uniform doneness': inside a turkey the centre of the stuffing often stays below 74°C (165°F) when the meat is already done. Baked separately it also gets a crust, and the roast turkey does not have to stay in the oven until the stuffing inside it catches up.
You can, in one of two ways. The first is to prepare the parts: dry the cornbread up to 2 days ahead and keep it in a bag at room temperature, cook the vegetables the day before and refrigerate them, then mix in the egg and broth just before baking. The USDA says not to refrigerate mixed, unbaked stuffing, because the wet, eggy bread is a good place for bacteria to grow. The second way is to bake the stuffing completely, cool it, refrigerate it within 2 hours and reheat it under foil at 175°C until the centre is 74°C, then uncover it for 10 minutes to crisp the top again. That also leaves the oven free on the day for the green bean casserole and the sweet potato casserole.
Mushy cornbread stuffing comes from cornbread that was not dried enough, from too much broth, or from stirring so hard that the pieces broke down. Dry the pieces for the full 40 to 50 minutes at 165°C until they snap, and stop adding broth when it only just begins to collect at the bottom of the bowl. If the baked stuffing is already too wet, bake it uncovered for 10 to 15 minutes longer at 220°C. Dry, crumbly stuffing had too little liquid or lost its foil too early: sprinkle 100 ml of warm broth over the top, cover and return it to a 175°C oven for 10 minutes.
Yes, with one check: read the label for sugar. Many boxed mixes and supermarket cornbreads are sweet and soft like cake, and that sweetness stays in the finished stuffing. Buy the plainest one you can find, use the same 750 g and dry it the same way, 40 to 50 minutes at 165°C; a softer, cakier cornbread may need the full 50 minutes. If you have an hour, homemade is the safer route: our Southern cornbread is unsweetened when you leave out the optional sugar, and one skillet gives the right amount.
For sausage cornbread stuffing, brown 400 g of sage or breakfast sausage meat, taken out of its casings, in the pan for 6 to 8 minutes until no pink is left, breaking it up as it cooks. The meat has to be fully cooked before it goes into the mix. Lift it out, cook the vegetables in the same pan with only 85 g of butter, and fold the sausage in with the cornbread. For a vegetarian version use the same amount of vegetable broth; the rest of the recipe stays as it is. Either way it goes on the table with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Rate this
Recipes by email
One letter a week: a recipe picked for your taste, plus whatever is new on the site. Unsubscribe in one click.
Welcome gift: Sergei's cookbook (e-book).
By subscribing you agree to the privacy policy.
Tell us what you like to cook (30 seconds) →Keep browsing
More dishes from the American archive — picked by overlap with what you're cooking now.
Join the conversation
Comments
No comments yet — be the first!