I like to just put any aromatics I have on hand in, celery, carrot, onion, fresh herbs, etc. I also prefer pan dressing with a crispy top; the way I make it is rich with broth, anyway.
The inside walls of the turkey will likely barely get above the safe temperature. The bread will serve as insulation and the heat will have to conduct to the room temperature core of the stuffing. To me this seems like it will obviosly take longer than a puddle of juices in direct contact with the cavity walls and undergoing natural convection (the liquid, that is) to maximize heat transfer.
Food poisoning story time: A few Thanksgivings ago, I was preparing our turkey for brining the night before and spilled a good portion of the brine and associated juices. My MIL helped me clean up and although we thought we had been careful washing our hands afterwards, we both spent Thanksgiving day blowing chunks. It could have been a coincidence but we were the only two to clean up the mess and the only two to get sick.
So true! I’m entertaining 22 people this Saturday, close family and dear friends, and feeding them roast turkey, gravy, stuffing (dressing), my own highly treasured garlic mashed potatoes, spiced sweet potato wedges, corn pudding, carrots glazed with tangarine juice and chili, cranberry sauce, Romaine salad with pomegranate, feta, and pine nuts, and finishing with ginger snaps, warm apple pie, and orange ice with cranberry compote; everything is made from scratch and with love. Not one of the other 21 people knows that they are merely props along the way to my real goal: the turkey soup. Thanksgiving this Saturday, dismember the glistening carcass on Sunday, transform it into stock all day Monday, turkey soup on Tuesday. Just one more week until my year’s culinary high point!
Another vote for a quartered onion or two, a quartered apple or two, some carrots, and some celery.
Their recipe calls for seared turkey wings with pierced skin placed on top of a baking dish of stuffing (or dressing) and roasted. It sounds delicious, but I don’t host Thanksgiving so I will have to try it some other time.
You can read about it here.
I’ve never been a fan of chunks of bread or croutons in my stuffing. I run it through the food processor, just like with the onions, celery and cooked sausage. The result is a uniform mixture that also heats uniformly. It usually comes out pretty piping hot, but if not, then that’s what the already hot oven is good for. My sister avoids the whole ordeal by making a wild rice stuffing.
Try imagining a steamship round. It’s clear, I think, that cutting a large hole in the middle would make it cook through much faster. Isn’t it?
My turkey goes hungry (I don’t put anything in the cavity).
I do brine it beforehand, which adds rather a lot of flavor.
BTW: the stuffing recipe we use - for an outside-the-bird stuffing - can be found on the Washington Post website.
Its most notable ingredient: BACON.
It will clog arteries at 10 paces but it’s YUMMY, and I know any Doper worth the name will approve of that!
Meh–I think my mom’s dressing with tons of Chicken broth is good enough. And you get a lot more than what you can cook in a bird–usually enough for days.
And it’s a lot better than those croutons they put in those Banquet Dinner meals.
Oh, got a recipe/directions for the crock pot stuffing that you know works well? I’m doing Thanksgiving dinner for about 10 and would love to do my stuffing in the crock. Mmmmm.
I read, somewhere, about putting dressing between the breast and the skin of the bird, that is, one loosens the breast skin and uses that area as a cavity. Supposedly, this keeps the breast from being overcooked. Next time I roast a whole bird, I’m going to have to try that.
This!
I’ve been cooking stuffed turkeys on my Weber kettle grill for 30 years. Indirect method, run at about 300 - 325 degrees. Can figure it taking about 13 minutes per pound. Always moist with a hint of smoke flavor from the charcoal, beautiful brown skin (which peels right off for carving due to the moistness). No fuss / no muss - no basting required. Only thing you need to do is add a few more pieces of charcoal to each side every hour.
I put some dressing into the bird, but I like to have lots of stuffing, so I make a big batch and most of it goes in a large casserole dish and is baked covered in foil for most of the time and with the foil removed to crisp the top.
I lightly saute a chopped onion, celery, and fresh mushrooms. I brown spicy Italian sausage, add it all to a large mixing bowl with the bread cubes, sage, thyme, pepper.
Then I heat some chicken stock in a pan and disolve a couple chicken bouillon cubes in it to strenghten the taste. Partially moisten the big bowl of stuffing, stuff the bird, put the rest in the oven dish and pour the stock over it before the foil goes on.
After the foil comes off I use the turkey baster to squirt some of the good turkey bits on top of the dressing before it goes back under the heat uncovered.
For me it’s all about the gravy, potatos, and stuffing. And the turkey skin! Don’t you know that stuff is bad for you? Just set all that icky skin aside for Dad, he’s insured. 
If you can wait for the extra stuffing, I’d highly recommend using some of the giblet/neck stock for the liquid or waiting until you make turkey stock from the carcass. That stuff from the grocery shelves is just oversalted and mostly tasteless. Or make stock in advance from a few turkey legs and use that: no waiting!
Update: we celebrated Thanksgiving last night. It’s a damned good thing I had already decided to go unstuffed this year, because when my husband picked up the turkey we had ordered, it was spectacularly huge – 16.2 kilos, or more than 36 pounds! If we had stuffed that turkeyzilla, we’d still be waiting for it to finish cooking.
We put celery sticks, apples, onions, rosemary, and sage in the cavity, put it in at 350° F, and roasted it for 9 and a half hours. With its being such a monstrously large bird, I was nervous that the meat would be tough, but it was by far the best turkey we’ve ever eaten; tender, juicy, and carrying a light flavor from the herbs.
I defended the dark meat for my soup with threats of spectacular violence if I were to be crossed, but the white meat was devoured down to the bone. All we have left at all beyond the turkey is a small bowl of glazed carrots, a bit larger bowl of spiced sweet potatoes, and an eensy sliver of apple pie. I’m at once proud of a successful feast, and alarmed at the thought of next year: with an extra year’s growth in all the kids, how am I ever going to fill those stomachs?
Oh, my goodness! Are you sure it wasn’t a young ostrich? The biggest turkey I ever cooked was 24 pounds, and it barely fit in my biggest roasting pan! 
Glad it was yummers!
Wow…Have never heard of a processed turkey this large. Usually, the largest ones you see are maybe 24#.