So, which do you prefer? I’m a southern US boy, and dressing (with giblet gravy!) is my preference. Actually, preference is no a strong enough word. I have to have dressing, I never need to have stuffing. It’s genetic, I think. Et tu?
Poll to follow. I’ll even include an option for you no good, sub-human, barely even animal people who like neither.
Is there an actual difference between stuffing and dressing, or are they different names for the same thing? (I don’t cook.)
Midwestern American here. I’ve always used the terms “dressing” and “stuffing” interchangeably, referring to a bread-based, spiced … thing, some of which goes into the bird and most of which just goes directly from the pan to the plate.
I prefer dressing too, one reason being that stuffing has a much higher risk of foodborne illness due to it sometimes not reaching the required germ-killing temperature inside the turkey.
Definitely different. For one thing, dressing is cooked in a pan separately from, though often including bits of, the turkey. It is much like a very moist, turkey flavored corn bread. Stuffing, OTOH, is shoved into the raw turkey ass to be cooked simultaneously and often includes weird stuff like cranberries or nuts.
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I said I was deranged and prefer stuffing only because that’s what we call it. We don’t actually stuff it in the turkey.
There is zero reason to worry about this if a person has even a modicum of good sense. After I remove the stuffing from the bird, it goes into the microwave until it’s steaming hot. And my mother always stuffed the bird way before microwaves were available. In 70 years of eating stuffing, I’ve never gotten ill from it.
I am an animal who likes both equally. Mostly because I use the terms interchangeably. When I make it, the bird gets stuffed as God intended, and what won’t fit into the bird(there is always extra) is baked in a casserole dish. If you want to call it by two different names just because of the baking vessel, then go for it.
If you get sick because your stuffing isn’t thoroughly cooked(without microwaving it), then you are doing something very, very wrong.
I would say …
STUFF IT!!!
Dressing is what you put on salad.
The tasty bread substance eaten on Thanksgiving is Stuffing. “Stove Top Stuffing” - it’s right in the name!
Stuffing is dry, dressing is yummy and moist!
In fact, there’s no way you could stuff dressing into a turkey before it’s cooked. It starts out as very soupy in the pan before it’s cooked.
“Stuffing” if it’s inside the bird. “Dressing” if it’s made separately.
I am not deranged and stuffing is superior because it sops up all of the good juices in there. When I make a turkey I make a lot of stuffing. It doesn’t all fit in the turkey so I have two batches. Everybody wants the stuffed stuffing before the unstuffed stuffing for that reason.
Cornbread Dressing please
I will eat stuffing but, it’s not something I’d request.
I prefer stuffing but the last several years I have not stuffed my turkey just because I think it cooks better without stuffing. I drain the juices from the turkey and add it to the dressing anyway so not much difference.
I took the third option, as I like both.
Don’t like either. Never have.
Well, I put 3 because:
I never use the term “dressing” for the soggy bread stuff, it’s stuffing. They don’t call it “Stove Top Dressing”.
I’ve never, or, at least to my knowledge, or for a very long time, had the soggy bread stuff actually stuffed in the bird. I’m sure I’d eat it if it was served to me, but that’s it.
As far as the name for the dish, dressing and stuffing are interchangeable.
However, I don’t care for it myself.
I’ve been curious about White Castle stuffed turkey. Buy a turkey’s worth of sliders. Remove the pickles. Quarter the sliders and loosely stuff the bird.