Classic Homemade Stuffing Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is traditional stuffing made of? ›

Classic stuffing made with bread cubes, seasonings, and held together with chicken stock and eggs. A holiday staple!

Eggs: Two lightly beaten eggs help hold the dressing together and add moisture.

Sourdough, Italian, and white bread are standard choices for stuffing; however, journeying beyond your comfort zone can produce excellent results.

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.

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.

How do you make traditional stuffing? If you've never made Thanksgiving turkey stuffing before, you may think it is difficult. Our recipe is very simple, though and calls for just a handful ingredients: bread, butter, onion, celery, chicken broth, eggs and spices.

Stuffing is not strictly a healthy food, because it is typically high in calories, fat, sodium, and refined carbohydrates. 1 But that doesn't mean you can't enjoy it, All foods can fit into a healthy diet in moderation.

No matter where you fall, getting a head start on what can be prepared before the big day is essential. One question that always crops up: Can you make stuffing ahead of time? The short answer to whether you can making stuffing ahead of time is yes.

The bread is one of the most important ingredients in the stuffing. This is the base; it's what gives the stuffing structure, and it plays a big role in determining the texture. While you can use almost any bread — cornbread, bagels, or even frozen waffles — to make stuffing, it needs to be dried or “staled” first.

How wet should stuffing be before baking? ›

The stuffing should be moist but not wet. If there is a puddle of broth at the bottom of the bowl, you've added too much. Add more bread to soak up the excess moisture. If the mix is still dry and crumbly, add more liquid and toss gently until it starts to clump together.

Why Do You Need to Dry Out Bread for Stuffing? Slightly stale bread absorbs meat juices and other ingredients better than moist, fresh bread.

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.

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.

Juices from the turkey soaked into the stuffing, infusing it with fat and flavor. "You've got those juices, and those juices taste great,” Smith said.

"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.

The term dressing, per the History Channel, originated around the 1850s, when the Victorians deemed stuffing too crude for the dish to be named. This happened around the same time that the term “dark meat” began to refer to chicken legs and thighs.

It it's to be put inside an animal, it's stuffing. If it's to be put inside a whole vegetable, it also will be called stuffing, but may be called filling in some circ*mstances. If it's to be put inside anything else, it's filling. This is all style based, though - "stuffed ravioli" is a common idiocy.

In the context of Thanksgiving, the word dressing is commonly used to mean the same exact thing as stuffing—including when it's cooked inside the bird.