My family's recipe for turkey dressing made with Southern cornbread AND herb stuffing for a Thanksgiving side dish everyone will love.
JUMP TO RECIPE
Down here we make our dressing with cornbread. Period. But since my mama’s not a native Southerner, she does things a tiny bit differently... and everyone LOVES it!
She came up with a recipe that's a compromise between traditional cornbread dressing and traditional stuffing that everyone loves by adding traditional packaged stuffing mix to the cornbread. And it's amazing!
My deep-rooted southern family LOVES this dressing and I'm not even sure most of them realize there's regular bread stuffing in the mix!
We always add chopped boiled eggs to our dressing (though I didn't when this picture was taken because I had a bunch of Canadians in the house and didn't want to scare them off).
You can add boiled eggs, crumbled sage sausage, oysters, sautéed green peppers or just about anything your family likes.
This is just a great base recipe to use to get you started!
This is an AWESOME side dish for Thanksgiving! Here are some more of my favorites for Turkey Day (or a good Sunday dinner!)
- Zucchini Pie - Sauteed zucchini and onions with Italian herds and cheese baked in a crescent roll crust.
- Sweet Potato Praline Casserole - A classic recipe with whipped sweet potatoes crowned with a pecan praline topping.
- Southern-Style Green Beans & Potatoes - Green Beans & Potatoes cooked low and slow (both stove-top and crock pot instructions).
- Squash Casserole - A delicious squash casserole recipe made with herb stuffing, sour cream and cream of chicken soup.
- Southern-Style Collard Greens - A step-by-step recipe for cooking authentic Southern collard greens.
- Pineapple Casserole - A sweet, savory, Southern casserole with pineapple, buttery Ritz crackers and sharp cheddar cheese.
- Country-Style Baby Lima Beans - A no-fail Southern recipe for tender baby lima beans (butterbeans) cooked low and slow with bacon.
Recipe for Mama’s Special Cornbread Dressing
Mama’s Special Cornbread Dressing
Ingredients
- Family-size pan of cornbread (see notes)
- 1 14-oz. bag Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing
- 1/2 cup butter, plus more for greasing the pan
- 1 large onion, diced
- 1 1/2 cups diced celery
- 1/2 teaspoon poultry seasoning, or to taste
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 4 cups chicken or turkey broth
- 1 can cream of chicken soup
Instructions
- Crumble cornbread into pieces uniform in size with the herb stuffing. Add cornbread and stuffing to a large bowl; set aside.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add onions and celery then sauté 4-5 minutes to soften them up a bit. Add contents of skillet to cornbread mixture.
- Add salt, pepper, poultry seasoning, broth and cream of chicken soup to a mixing bowl then stir until thoroughly combined. Add broth mixture to cornbread mixture then gently stir until all ingredients are just combined. Taste for seasoning at this point and add more if you like. I start with a small amount of each and go from there – how flavorful your broth is has a lot to do with how much additional seasoning is needed.
- S poon cornbread mixture into a 13x9 casserole dish. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.
Notes
- By ‘family-size’ I mean a 13x9 pan or large skillet of cornbread. You can also use 2 6-serving boxes cornbread mix, prepared.
- If you like bell pepper in your dressing, add about a cup when sautéing the onion and celery.
- My family likes to add chopped boiled eggs too! I think that's a regional thing.
- Do not over-mix the dressing or you'll end up with a dense loaf that requires a knife and spatula to serve. Blech.
I made this for our Gayheart Reunion this past weekend, but doubled the recipe, and had rave reviews, needless to say I brought home an empty pan. Love it!!
ReplyDeleteRamona, I don't know how I missed your comment but I'm glad I found it! You just made my day! Thank you for writing!
DeleteThank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!
ReplyDeleteThis is just like my Momma made it..but with the addition of hard boiled eggs and minus the sage...it was yummy...
ReplyDeleteLove how recipes can differ so little and be "ours".. Thanks for sharing!!
My mother makes it this way with bell peppers. Divine. And every time I smell onions, celery, and bell pepper sauteing, I think of Thanksgiving. Thank you for sharing this recipe at Weekend Potluck. Pinning.
ReplyDeleteI use green bell peppers to What a great flavor it has, at least to me it does....
DeleteThat is the way it should be made it is very delicious when it is done like your mother.
DeleteOmgosh, just found you, you are freakin hilarious. I just Love reading your recipe posts they make me LOL your just cute as a button.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the laughs and awesome recipes.
I make mine with sausage!
ReplyDeleteWhile I love turkey, I've never been that crazy about dressing. It was just that dry stuff you put gravy on. (My grandmother made 2 kinds. I cant remember what they were but I didn't really like either). One year at a Thanksgiving pot luck at work, one of my friends made dressing and I loved it! A big reason was that it had pieces of turkey in it. It had eggs and onion and all those things. I never make it any other way now. Though I prescribe to the box kind cause I'm too lazy to go to the trouble to make it from scratch. One year my (then) husband made crawfish dressing-yummy!
ReplyDeleteI make mine just like this but if you are pressed for time you can also use bag cornbread stuffing. Just add a little more broth.
ReplyDeleteI'M from the south and my family loves dressing at thanksgiving.But the way i do mine, and the way i was taught by my mom.I boil turkey necks,turkey wings,turkey legs,couple stalks of celery,stick butter boil on med for two hrs then add chicken liver and girzzards cook another hr.then make one pan cornbread and one bag cornbread stuffing. mix the two. then chopped up the meat after cooled.i boil six eggs and chop them up.you dont half to use all the liver and girzzards just some for flavor,and if you do it this way after meat is done i take celery out and toss it. all you want is the meat and juice i know this sounds like a hard jod its not.just takes a little time but worth it.i chop a onion in cornbread,put the turkey meat in and eggs and then six raw eggs,as you can tell i make a big turkey pan of dressing,and it all gets eating lol.then i add my juice i cooked my meat in and i even use some of my turkey juice from my turkey that i baked. always butter ball on my table.I add salt,pepper,sage and poultry seasoning,mix all together add enough juice to make it creamy nobody likes dry dressing cover with ten foil and bake 45mins the last 15mins take foil off to brown on top. and the meat you chopped i use some of that in my givlet gravy to pour on dressing.just thought i would share mine.
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly how I make mine too. Taught by my mom who was raised in the south. Everyone loves this recipe!!
DeleteJust like mine but we add green onions also. Just finished making a huge pan for tomorrow.
DeleteThere are people who throw away bacon grease??? I am aghast! How do they flavor things?
ReplyDeleteI use a package of "COTTON PICKIN CORNBREAD " mix if I am out of cornmeal. I also use the bagged stuffing. I have found that if I use the cubes instead of the crushed, the dressing has a little better consistency. not as " mushy" . I love it on my turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce
ReplyDeleteWe make cornbread dressing in our family... Have to make a few pans of cornbread and batches of drop biscuits... crumble them up, spread them out on a cookie sheet, and let them dry... we put in plenty o' onions, a bit o' celery, chopped boiled eggs, s&p, a tiny bit o' sage, raw eggs to make it hold it's shape a bit and keep it moist, giblet gravy (made from the giblets with added turkey drippin's from the traditional oven baked turkey), bits of shredded turkey and finely chopped gibblets from makin' the gravy, and additional chicken broth if it's needed...also, it's cooked in a separate pan, not the bird... although I have put it around the bird as it cooks before.. but I prefer the separate pan method... I have a feel for it and pretty much cook by ear, so there's not a hard and fast "recipe" per say.. it's labor intensive, but it's leagues better than anythin' store bought or that I've ever had anywhere but at my families houses... also why it's only made once or twice a year...lol..... just had the need to share... Best to all... ;) Lesa Kosteck -- Central Texas
ReplyDeleteThat is how we fix ours too, except for the eggs. Dont find we need it.
DeleteDrop biscuits, cornbread, onion, sage,celery, drippings and ad extra
chicken broth. I do get it pretty wet when mixing so that it will be
moist coming out of the oven. Nice to meet another who does theirs like
I do. :-)
Kat
My Mothers recipe almost for the celery. We grew up on this and is now what I make for my family.Thank you for sharing things I like best:)))
ReplyDeleteThis is basically a Carrot cake.......just add 3 cups of shredded Carrot's................ummmmmmm.........good!
ReplyDeleteVery similar to my Mother's (and Grandmother's) recipe. We've made this cornbread for many, many years. Still nothing better than a bowl of pinto beans, cornbread crumbled in them...and chopped onion, of course!
ReplyDeleteOh yes, very nice, and with fresh oysters from the Chesapeake Bay....absoh-loot-lee heavenly! By the way, I think Dante overlooked a circle in Hades for those who throw away the bacon grease :)
ReplyDeleteHow big of a pan of cornbread and can I use a package cornbread?
ReplyDeleteClick the link to the Skillet Cornbread for the recipe (will give you an idea how much). You can use a box mix but don't use anything sweet like Jiffy mix.
DeleteYou cook like my Mimi! Yummo! We add Jimmy Dean sausage to the mix!
ReplyDeleteLooks wonderful and on-target as long as you skip that nasty cafeteria seasoning sage!
ReplyDeleteCan I assemble the day before and cook it after the turkey?
ReplyDeleteYou sure can!
DeleteSo is this crumbly or more one with itself - like a corn casserole might be?
ReplyDeleteI've never had corn casserole so I'm not sure! It's not a loaf like some dressings are so I guess you could call it crumbly. If you pinch it together, it will clump. If you want it more dense, just keep stirring to break is down more before you cook it. I hope that helps!
DeleteMy Mom makes a dressing like this, but she adds in some of the giblets from the stock she makes.
ReplyDeleteNow this is dressing! Every recipe may be a little different, but this is dressing.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to try the Cornbread recipe, for sure. I just haven't come across a Cornbread that isn't sweetened, and really want the UNSWEETENED kind, if I might have a recipe for it, or a name of a boxed cornbread, that I may use. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI have two different versions of your recipe. One calls for poultry seasoning and cream of chicken soup. The other one calls for sage but no poultry seasoning or cream of chicken soup. Which recipe is right? Love reading your blog! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteBoth are correct - one is my recipe, they other is Mama's (there are two on my site). I realized a while back that Mama puts cream of chicken in her recipe which I didn't include here originally so I added it to this recipe.
DeleteI wish either your recipe or an idea of the amounts(cornmeal/flour, eggs, buttermilk, etc.) were listed. I'm not sure how much to make!
ReplyDeleteI made your cornbread stuffing for our Family Thanksgiving meal yesterday 11/23/23. Wow! It is an amazing dish and the one I will use in the future! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI never heard of adding cream of chicken soup to dressing until I started reading some Southern cooks' blogs. My dressing is very similar, although I also add cooked sausage, but no soup, just broth to moisten it.
ReplyDelete