OK, I know there’s a gazillion websites out there with Thanksgiving recipes. And besides that, I work in food service as a baker and have a wonderful and simple dressing/stuffing recipe for regular bread that I made up myself.
But I’ve never done cornbread dressing/stuffing and decided I want to ask my fellow Dopers, as I love the comments that usually come with a request like this.
So, can you help me out with your awesome recipes for cornbread dressing? I do love sage too, just so you know!
I don’t make a pure cornbread stuffing. I mix mine with regular bread. I suggest making cornbread and mix it with your recipe. Either add it in and make lots of stuffing or make yours with half bread, half cornbread. Dressing is easy, if you’re not adding eggs to it, you can just taste and add what you like.
I make the cornbread, cut off the crust and let that sit out and get dry before I use it.
My actual recipe is Lots of Stuffing, got this from my mom.
Saute 2-3 cups of chopped celery with 2 medium chopped onions in 1 1/2 sticks butter. Add 1/2-1 cup chopped parsley, 1 teaspoon thyme, 1 teaspoon sage. Add in 2-4 quarts of dry old bread or whatever you have. Add salt, pepper, check your spices. I go easy on the sage, as much as I love it, it can overpower. I mix all this in a huge pot on a very low heat. Then add water or broth until you get the consistency you want.
I personally want stuffing just starting to stick together, as the cooking process makes it really wet. The rest I bake for about 20 minutes after the turkey comes out while I’m making gravy.
I know this will ignite a storm of controversy, but in my universe, the key to cornbread stuffing is to make the cornbread without sugar. Let the hatin’ begin!
Thanks to both of you for your replies! I’ll be roasting the bird this afternoon, and will go with ShallowEnd’s directions, although not as much as the turkey is only fourteen pounds.
freckafree, the cornbread I make does have sugar, but not very much compared to other recipes I’ve seen. It also has more cornmeal than regular flour. This makes it more dense and a little gritty, the way I like it. None of those wimpy cakelike cornbreads for me!
I use more cornmeal than regular flour, too, and always use stoneground cornmeal.
My cornbread stuffing is almost identical to ShallowEnd’s. I don’t use regular bread though, and I usually make it with sausage. When making cornbread use the coarsest grain corn meal available and minimize the flour as others have said. Also use corn oil to grease the pan and added to the batter to bring out the flavor. You can also add corn starch to work as a binder for a denser cake.
I make cornbread to the recipe on the side of the Quaker Cornmeal box. Its low but not no sugar. I make it the day before (1 nine inch round makes stuffing for about 6). I then pull it out of the pan, cut it into large (1 inch) pieces and leave it out overnight on a cookie sheet to dry. I then build a pretty standard thanksgiving stuffing around it (onion, celery, sage, thyme, chicken stock, butter, salt and pepper), but add about half a pound of sweet italian sausage to it. This makes the best stuffing I’ve ever had bar none. BTW, mixing gently breaks up those big pieces into the a good homogeneous mixture–no big hunks of bread are left.
I improv-ed one a few years ago that I loved, though others found it a bit too nontraditional: cornbread cubes, chopped apples, raisins, nuts, seasoned with curry powder. Moisten it with whatever, I probably used chicken broth.
Well, I’m about to start chopping up the bread and the cornbread. I will put in sage, along with celery and onion that’s been sauted. I grew and dried the sage myself, so we’ll see how it compares to the stuff in the little boxes from the store.
The cornbread is mixed up thusly:
1 c AP flour, 1 c cornmeal, 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/2 c oil, 1 T baking powder, 1 t salt. Bake at 350 for 30 mins in an 8 in square cake pan.
For a 14-poundish bird a double recipe will work well. Cut into cubes. Also cut up 8-10 slices of whole wheat sandwich bread. Sautee onion, celery, sage, and parsley. Add a can of mushrooms, a couple of eggs, and chicken broth to moisten. Salt and pepper to taste.
I’ve had it with chopped apples and I love it too, twix.
I’m not making Thanksgiving this year but I’ve been reading and listening to so many Thanksgiving stories I might do a mini Thanksgiving sometime in December with chicken, or maybe just a turkey breast. I’m eager to try a dressing with sausage after hearing so many great things about it.
I have to make two birds this year, one small one (16 pounds ) for the immediately family on Thursday, then a 30-pounder for the big family gathering on Saturday. I love and refuse to change my choice of a good sage dressing - so this year it gets made in the small bird and I’m using my backup cornbread recipe for the bigger one. My daughter has a mild sage allergy and is looking forward to a tasty, bird-cooked dressing; I usually make a small pan of sage-free bread dressing to accommodate her. To the point, I’ve learned over 30 years to keep dressing/stuffing simple, just a tasty alternative to the meat for gravy etc. I can’t stand sweet dinner foods, so I’ve never used raisins, etc., but even savory ingredients can quickly become too much in a dish that should be very simple. IMHO.
On that general subject, does anyone still buy canned cranberry sauce, and if so, fer gossakes why? It’s almost faster to make it fresh than to open a can, IMVHO…
It’s not Thanksgiving without that dog-food plop of the cranberry coming out of the can. 
You owe me a new keyboard!
Well, the dressing is done and eaten, and the turkey has been dismantled. Both the inside stuffing and outside dressing were good, if I do say so myself. Next time I think I’ll try making it with sausage, as a couple of posters here mentioned. That sounded good.
The turkey skelton, skin and pan drippings are on the stove in a big post, simmering very slowly. We’ve never wasted a turkey in our family, the remains always got reduced for stock.
So, who wants turkey and dressing?
Me!
I have turkey in the fridge, busily defrosting. But I’ll take a starter portion now, to get me in the mood… 
-D/a
Sounds delicious. I am trying it this way this year. Thanks!
Anyone have a can’t miss recipe for cornbread stuffing with smoked oysters? I had it many years ago at a now-departed friends’ house and it was the best dressing I’ve ever had. I’d love to try to replicate it.