Date Published: Feb 10th, 2021 | Last Updated: Feb 10th, 2021
Author: Abby |Category: sides
Serves: 1 large tray | Prep time: 30 mins | Cook time: 1.5 hrs

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Stuffing is definitely in my top 10 favourite things to eat. I could eat it all day everyday – just let me drown in the buttery goodness of the soft bread in aromatic herbs. Warning: this recipe makes quite a big batch for a party, so if you’re scaling down for dinner, feel free the halve the recipe. I always make the full recipe no matter the party size in hopes that there would be leftovers so I could keep eating it for the rest of the week 😜.

Stuffing is a classic side dish to any Thanksgiving dinner. There are many variations out there but the base ingredients are always the same: bread, celery, parsley, and onion cooked in butter and baked in a blend of herbs including poultry seasoning. Poultry seasoning doesn’t seem to exist on the supermarket shelves in Australia (then again, neither does Thanksgiving) so whenever I visit home in Canada I always bring back a bag with me. If you can’t easily access poultry seasoning, there are a few recipes floating online to make your own!

I’ve made this stuffing at least a dozen times over the years and it’s always a talking point. The trick that I learned the hard way is not to add too much liquid to the stuffing. You must mix things quickly and not let any liquids pool at the bottom or let it sit for too long before baking, otherwise the bread becomes too soggy and you end up with a really mushy stuffing and doesn’t bake as nicely. To limit the mushiness, you want your bread cubes to be as dry as possible before starting and you want to add only enough liquid so everything is just slightly wet.

Side story: One year at the food pavilion at the annual CNE in Canada, a food booth made stuffing WAFFLES! It blew my freaking mind. The waffle was made of delicious stuffing and then topped with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and gravy. It was like the perfect Thanksgiving dinner in waffle form! I’ve always wanted to try and recreate it, but never got around to buying a waffle maker.

Anyways, without further ado, here’s the recipe! If you have any comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you in the comment section! You can follow me on instagram, youtube and facebook to see all the recipes I post!

Happy cooking!

Ingredients you’ll need:

• 1 loaf of sliced plain bread (cheapest one will do) (or 12 cups  dry bread cubes)
• 1 cup (227g) salted butter
• 1 large (2 cups) yellow onion, finely diced
• 2 cups celery, finely diced
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• 500g mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tsp poultry seasoning
• 1.5 tsp dried sage
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/2 tsp dried marjoram
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• Chicken broth as needed (~2-3 cups) (you can use vegetable broth as well to make it vegetarian)
• 2 eggs, beaten

Directions:

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Dehydrate your bread (skip this step if you’re using dry bread cubes): Preheat oven to 180˚C (350F). Slice the entire loaf of bread into cubes. Spread out the cubes evenly in a single layer on a baking tray (you will need to split it up between a few trays so they get evenly toasted) and bake until the cubes are dry and crunchy, flipping over once. This should take about 10mins. Once the bread cubes are dehydrated, set them aside to let cool.

Alternatively, if you plan ahead you can leave the bread cubes out overnight to air dry instead of baking them – but this may take longer depending on how humid your environment is. I like to store them in the bread bag once cooled.

Tip: This is probably the most time-consuming part of this whole recipe. You can do this step a couple days ahead of time to save time if you’re cooking a big dinner – just keep the bread cubes away from moisture until you’re ready to use.

Preheat oven to 180˚C (350F).

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Melt the butter in a pot and cook the onion, celery, mushroom and parsley until they’re soft and break easily with a spoon. Once cooked, turn off the heat.

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Place the dried bread cubes into a large bowl and season with poultry seasoning, sage, thyme, marjoram, salt, and pepper. Spoon the cooked vegetables over the bread without the butter liquid and mix everything together quickly, otherwise the bread will start getting soggy.

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Pour in the remaining butter liquid from the pot and continue to mix well. Don’t let liquid sit on bottom of bowl! Add the eggs and ONLY enough chicken broth to MOISTEN the bread crumbs (too much will result in mushy stuffing, ~2-3 cups). Mix well.

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Once everything is incorporated, transfer the mixture to a large baking tray and bake uncovered for 30-45mins, flipping and stirring once halfway through. The stuffing is done once it turns a toasty golden brown colour. Serve!

Alternatively, you can also cook this in a slow cooker: cook on High for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to Low, and cook for 4 to 8 hours.

Summarized Recipe: