Old Fashioned Stuffing (2024)

FAQs

What is traditional stuffing made of? ›

Bread is the main ingredient, and can make or bread the stuffing. The better the quality of the bread, the better the outcome. Use a simple white or a mixture of favorite breads. Carrot, celery, and onion form the base layer of flavor.

Broth: Chicken broth keeps the stuffing moist without making it soggy. Eggs: Two lightly beaten eggs help hold the dressing together and add moisture. Water: You can add a few tablespoons of water, if you'd like, to achieve your desired consistency.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Fully cook raw meat, poultry, or seafood ingredients before adding to stuffing. Combine the ingredients and place them in your bird immediately before cooking. Don't stuff whole poultry with cooked stuffing. In addition to the turkey, the stuffing's center needs to reach 165 F.

Rich with double chicken stock, tons of butter, and handfuls of aromatics, it is in my opinion the best cornbread dressing in the world.

That's the main reason to cook stuffing inside a turkey: The bread cubes soak up roasting turkey juices and transform into incredible-tasting flavor bombs.

Some people make the distinction that dressing is the proper name for the dish when it has been prepared outside of the bird—that is, when it has not been stuffed and cooked inside.

Why is stuffing so tasty? ›

Stuffing has a symbiotic relationship with turkey. As it cooks, the herbs in the stuffing infuse into the bird, giving it a lot more flavor. The turkey, in turn, drips all its delicious juices into the stuffing as it cooks, moistening it and making it taste great.

Starting with dried sourdough bread, celery, onion, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, chicken broth and eggs. A whole stick of butter goes in the pan adding onions, herbs and garlic (sausage is optional). Eggs combine everything together before going in the oven on a baking dish.

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.

What Wasn't Served at the First Thanksgiving. It is also worth noting what was not present at the first Thanksgiving feast. There were no cloudlike heaps of mashed potatoes, since white potatoes had not yet crossed over from South America.

Dressing Is For Midwesterners

Generally, in the Midwestern states, it's called stuffing regardless of the ingredients or whether it's cooked inside a turkey.

In a large bowl or large plastic food storage bag, combine ​breadcrumbs with dried parsley, minced onion, celery flakes, thyme, pepper, sage, and marjoram. To prepare stuffing, bring 1 1/4 cups of water or chicken broth and 3 tablespoons of butter to a boil.

Stir together onion, celery, bread, pepper, parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and celery salt in a large bowl; pour melted butter over bread mixture and stir to combine. Spoon stuffing into the cavities of chicken; place chicken into a roasting pan.

This stuffing is made on the stove top with oven toasted bread cubes, onion, celery, dried seasonings, butter, and warm chicken broth. The best part is that it frees up oven space because it cooks on the stove top!

Bread Stuffing Ingredients

Vegetables: You'll need chopped celery with leaves and a chopped onion. Bread: Nine cups of chopped bread cubes should make about 16 servings. Seasonings: Season the bread stuffing with salt, dried sage, dried thyme, poultry seasoning, and black pepper.