Classic Sausage Stuffing: The Thanksgiving Side Dish To End All Thanksgiving Side Dishes, Or, Everyone’s Favorite Gravy Soaker-Upper.
Of all the Thanksgiving side dishes, stuffing (AKA dressing) is arguably the most classic, the most beloved. Therefore, it’s OK to phone it in and just make something out of a box. Wait, let’s try that again. Stuffing is iconic. It’s quite possibly the ultimate Thanksgiving side dish. That classic, sage-scented, sausage-bespeckled pan of herbaceous carbs ready to be drenched in gravy? Yeah, it’s got to be really great. Everyone at that Thanksgiving table waits all year for this meal, and the stuffing is one of the things on that table that you (and your guests) really only eat once or twice a year. So you want to nail it. To serve the best sausage stuffing in the history of Thanksgiving. And to do that you need the kind of sausage and sage stuffing recipe people beg for—something easy, but unmistakably homemade. That ideal recipe, the one you’ll pass down, the one that’s the first thing you crave when you remember that Thanksgiving is around the corner—that is THIS Thanksgiving stuffing recipe! You can even make this stuffing a day ahead of time! So fire up that printer, or Pin button, or however you manage your favorite recipes, because the search for the best stuffing recipe ever stops here.
Our Classic Stuffing Recipes Calls for (Gasp) Classic Stuffing Ingredients
And we don’t mean a box of stuffing mix. Although if that’s your beloved tradition, we are sooo not here to knock it. Thanksgiving is all about tradition—jiggly jello salads studded with pineapple and Cool Whip, or cranberry sauce straight out of the can, we’ve all got those nostalgic dishes that we just have to have on turkey day. For us, we just have to have a really, really good pan of homemade sausage stuffing. We want pure, classic, bready, herby goodness. And that’s exactly what this recipe yields. Oh, and it’s easy, too! Here’s everything you’ll need to make it:
- Ground Italian sausage
- Butter
- French bread
- Yellow onions
- Celery
- Fresh sage, rosemary, parsley and thyme
- Nutmeg
- Chicken broth
- Eggs
What Is the Difference Between Dressing and Stuffing?
If we’re really being sticklers about it, the difference between stuffing and dressing is that stuffing is literally “stuffed” inside the turkey to be cooked, and dressing is when you cook it outside of the bird in a baking pan. So yes, that means that this recipe actually, technically, should be called sausage dressing because it is not cooked inside the turkey. However, stuffing has become most people’s go-to word for the bready stuff that has sausage and herbs in it and so we’re calling it that. It’s also what we grew up eating, and we grew up calling that delicious baked-in-a-pan side dish “stuffing” so we’re calling this stuffing, too. You can call it whatever you want!
What Is the Best Bread for Stuffing?
And the best bread for stuffing is... old, dry bread! Why? Because you need the bread to be nice and dry and ready to soak up all of the liquid you’re going to pour into it to make a sausage stuffing that’s moist and almost custard-y inside. Not only do we want you to use day-old bread, but you’ll also toast it in the oven a bit just to be sure that it’s really dried out. All of this should be really good news. We like to make stuffing with old-fashioned French bread—and no, we don’t mean a long, thin baguette. We mean soft-on-the-inside, decidedly un-fancy, oval-shaped loaves from the grocery store—the kind you might use to make garlic bread. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no better bread for making stuffing!
How Do You Make Sausage Stuffing From Scratch?
Making sausage stuffing from scratch is pretty darn easy, and since you can make it a day ahead of time, it’s really a breeze! Even on Thanksgiving! We’ll walk you through it—you’ve got this.
- Rip up the day old loaf of French bread into a bunch of pieces. This is a good time to tag in some little helpers, if you’ve got ‘em!
- Dry out the bread by baking it at 300° for about 45 minutes.
- Brown the sausage. When it’s starting to brown, add butter, onion and celery and sauté.
- Toss the sausage and bread with parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Drizzle with broth and mix again.
- Whisk more broth into the eggs, and toss that with the rest of the stuffing mixture.
- Pour the stuffing mixture into a baking pan, cover and bake for 30 minutes!
- If you’re making this stuffing recipe a day ahead, STOP HERE! Let the stuffing cool a bit and then put it in the fridge, covered, overnight.
- The next day (or right away, if you’re not making it ahead) take the foil off and give the stuffing another 45 minutes in the oven until the top is lovely and golden.
Tools You’ll Need
More Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipes You’ll Love
It’s Never Too Early To Start Thanksgiving Menu Planning!
October 1st? Yeah, we’ve been known to start sketching out our menu, and our cooking and prep plan as early as that. Whenever you start plotting for the best meal of the year, we hope that this stuffing recipe is exactly what you’re looking for! It’s sure to be a hit. If you make it, let us know how you like it! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
