The Best Cornbread Stuffing Recipe
Say goodbye to bland, dry, stuffing! This is the year to make your stuffing recipe with cornbread! Crunchy and tender pieces of fluffy cornbread marry with fresh herbs and seasoned onions for a classic take on everyone’s favorite thanksgiving side: Cornbread Stuffing. While this recipe is straightforward, keep in mind it bakes for an hour in the oven, which allows the perfect amount of time for putting the final touches on your other dishes. Other cornbread stuffing recipes include ingredients like oysters, bacon or sausage, but we keep our recipe for cornbread stuffing simple, light, and layered with flavor with only the basics. Feel free to use pre-made or boxed cornbread to keep it extra easy!
What Is The Difference Between Cornbread Dressing and Stuffing?
Historically, cornbread dressing refers to the fluffy savory bread mixture cooked outside the bird while stuffing, a nod to the name, when the turkey is stuffed with the herby bread mixture. Nowadays, both cornbread dressing and cornbread stuffing are interchangeably used. This comforting dish originated in the South by swapping out cornmeal for stale bread, which has more recently turned to use subtly sweet and light cornbread and is sometimes referred to as southern cornbread stuffing.
What is Cornbread Stuffing Made Of?
If you’re deciding on what cornbread for stuffing you’re going to use – pre-made or boxed works just fine! But, if you’re looking to make cornbread from scratch, we suggest our Homemade Cornbread which you’ll want to 1.5x for exactly 10 cups! The rest of the ingredients are simple (nothing too fancy here!) but makes a well-rounded flavor profile, and can be found at your local grocery store if you don’t already have them:
Day-old cornbread, homemade or store-bought
Unsalted butter
Yellow onion
Celery
Fresh sage
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Kosher salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
Nutmeg
Fresh flat-leaf parsley
Chicken stock (or vegetable stock to make it vegetarian)
Eggs
Should You Dry Out Cornbread For Stuffing?
The secret to crispy, flavorful stuffing is making sure your cornbread isn’t too fresh beforehand! Otherwise, you risk a soggy instead of a perfectly toasted cornbread top. We want this easy cornbread stuffing to suck up all the brothy, herby, buttery flavors which result in a golden brown exterior and a tender, fluffy interior with the seasoning distributed throughout. If you feel your cornbread is a bit fresher than you’d like, you can always speed up the staling process by popping it into a low-heat oven to dry it out. Dry (or even stale!) bread is the best for making our Mushroom & Leek Bread Pudding.
How to Make Cornbread Stuffing
Our homemade cornbread stuffing is not only easy but also a crowd-pleaser! Follow these few steps for all the tricks and tips you might need for making the best cornbread stuffing:
Sauté! Celery and onion not only help develop a savory rich flavor but also add a little crunch and texture to your dish! Fresh herbs of sage, thyme, and rosemary combine with cracked pepper, salt, and nutmeg for a burst of seasoning.
Mix! Take your big chunks of cornbread for stuffing and generously mix it with the buttery, herbaceous celery onion mixture until combined. Drizzle over some of the stock and mix again! Whisk the egg – which we use as a binding ingredient – with the remaining stock and drizzle it over the pieces until all the liquid is absorbed!
Bake! We like to butter the inside of our dish first for extra flavor! Keep it covered in the first half so the cornbread stuffing doesn’t get too crispy on the top. Cook for the remaining time with it uncovered until set. Garnish with your favorite herbs, like parsley or leftover sage, thyme, or rosemary!
Tools You’ll Need
Thanksgiving Side Dishes for Everyone!
We’re big on Thanksgiving side dishes! So much so, we made a roundup of 40 Best Thanksgiving Sides. But, there are simply a few we can’t live without:
We’re Not Stuffed Yet!
We love this recipe so much, we make it more often than just Thanksgiving! You can too! Snap a photo of your cornbread and maybe even a video of the beautiful people you feed it to. Tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper. Happy eating!
