Italian Sausage Cornbread Stuffing Recipe - Savory Simple (2024)
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This Italian Sausage Cornbread Stuffing Recipe is flavorful, easy to prepare and perfect for Thanksgiving!
Can you believe it’s almost time for Thanksgiving? This year is flying by at warp speed. Every year goes by a little bit faster, and the big 4-0 is now just around the corner.
It’s been a tumultuous year in countless ways, but I have a lot to be thankful for right now. A happy, healthy husband and family (and cat… too many close calls!), a niece or nephew on the way, a cozy little home, and amazing friends. Enough schmaltz, let’s get to business. Stuffing business. Or is it… dressing business?
Stuffing vs. Dressing
Recently, I learned that I had possibly been using the term “stuffing” wrong my entire life, as I started seeing recipes for Thanksgiving dressing with corresponding photos of stuffing. It was a bit mortifying. When I hear dressing, I think of salads. I was very confused.
It was explained to me that stuffing is the mixture baked into the turkey, while dressing is basically the same recipe but baked in a casserole dish. Eh? So my entire immediate and extended family had it wrong?
You can take a shortcut with the cornbread, since it’s being dried out and mixed with other ingredients. You can certainly bake some from scratch, but feel free to use a mix, or buy some pre-baked. Regardless of whether it’s homemade or store-bought, I recommend using a cornbread that you’re familiar with and like, since it will still be a dominant flavor. A friend recently served me Trader Joe’s cornbread (from a mix) alongside chili, and I had no idea it wasn’t homemade until she told me.
If you want to lighten up the recipe a bit, swap out regular Italian sausage for pre-cooked chicken or turkey Italian Sausage.
More Thanksgiving Recipes
Pumpkin Slab Pie (perfect for feeding a large crowd!)
Baked Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese (the BEST Thanksgiving side dish)
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake (need I say more?)
Pecan Pie French Toast Casserole (brunch for the out-of-town guests!)
6cupscornbread(your favorite recipe, cut into 1-inch pieces)
1tablespoonextra virgin olive oil
12ouncespre-cooked mild Italian sausage,sliced
1largeyellow onion,diced (approximately 2 cups)
2ribscelery,diced
1/2tablespoonfresh thyme leaves
1tablespoonsage leaves,finely chopped
2clovesgarlic,minced
1/2teaspoonkosher salt
1/2teaspoonground black pepper
1 1/2cupschicken stock,homemade or low-sodium
1cuphalf-and-half(or 1/2 cup whole milk + 1/2 cup cream)
1largeegg
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees F. Distribute the diced cornbread evenly on a baking sheet and dry out in the oven for 45-50 minutes. Place in a large bowl and set aside.
In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add the sausage. Cook for several minutes, allowing the pieces to caramelize. Once they are nicely browned, move them to a paper towel-lined plate and set aside. Drain some but not all of the fat from the pan and then add the diced onion and celery with a pinch of salt. The liquid from the vegetables should help loosen up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan; stir those in with the vegetables. Cook for 3-5 minutes until the onions are slightly caramelized. Add the garlic, thyme and sage and cook for another minute before removing from the heat. Stir in the salt and pepper.
Whisk together the chicken stock, half and half and egg. Pour the mixture over the cornbread. Add the sausage as well as the vegetable mixture and fold the ingredients together. Cover with plastic wrap and allow the ingredients to chill in the refrigerator for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 9x9 inch baking dish and distribute the stuffing ingredients evenly. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the top is golden brown.
Please read my full post for additional recipe notes, tips, and serving suggestions!
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Why Do You Dry Cornbread For Dressing? We all know good cornbread dressing hinges on perfectly stale (but not too stale) cornbread. Without adequate drying time, the cornbread becomes sloppy once it hits the casserole dish and mixes with the broth and eggs.
You want your stuffing moist but not soggy and certainly not dry. The bread in the stuffing absorbs moisture, but if it's dry (as it should be, see above), it takes some time for the liquid to settle in. I suggest adding a little at a time, say 1 cup of broth for every 4 cups of dry mix.
Dressing is made from cornbread, and stuffing is traditionally made from other breads — sourdoughs, biscuits, etc. Some dressing recipes incorporate a little white bread, but that does not exclude them from the Southern persuasion if cornbread is the cornerstone.
The most important ingredient of stuffing may be the binder, which keeps all the other elements in place. For a fluffy texture, use eggs. Stock is the most-used binder. Less conventional possibilities include fruit juice (such as apple or orange) and alcohol (wine or liqueur).
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.
Absolutely. Most Thanksgiving stuffing recipes can be made at least partially in advance since: A) They're easily assembled a day or two ahead of Thanksgiving Day; and B) They're often baked using a two-step process (once covered with foil to cook through, then uncovered to achieve a crispy top).
If you don't plan on stuffing the bird, but preparing the dressing as a side dish, you can prepare uncooked stuffing ahead of time as long as you freeze the stuffing immediately after mixing the wet and dry ingredients. USDA recommends that you never refrigerate uncooked stuffing.
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.
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.
Both dressing and stuffing are side dishes served at most Thanksgiving tables. It depends on the part of the country you are from as to what you call it. Those in the south use the term dressing interchangeably; whereas those in the northern states generally refer to the dish as stuffing.
This is down to a science: A 2015 survey conducted on behalf of the poultry company Butterball revealed that, regardless of how the dish was cooked, most of the country—including 100 percent of New Englanders—refers to the side as stuffing, while Southerners are devoted dressing fans.
This recipe for classic sausage stuffing is nicely flexible, so you can adapt it to what you like. Some sausage meat packets already have added spices and you can even use flavoured sausages, squeezed from their casings, to make stuffing.
Sausage casing, also known as sausage skin or simply casing, is the material that encloses the filling of a sausage. Natural casings are made from animal intestines or skin; artificial casings, introduced in the early 20th century, are made of collagen and cellulose.
Most sausages are made by forcing chopped or ground meat, fat, and seasonings into a skin of sorts (called the casing), which then gets tied or twisted to create individual links.
The white stuff is, in fact, mold. A very specific mold, used in the fermenting of sausages. By innoculating the sausages with a specific and beneficial mold, the good mold kills any bad molds and keeps them from spoiling the product... It may have been “killed” after the sausage was made and just left on for flavor.
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