Better than your Granny’s cornbread dressing?! Ok, well maybe just the next best thing. Holiday dinners with my family are built aroundwhat most consider to be just a side dish – dressing. Chicken dressing is the glue that brings the ham together with the mac-n-cheese, the strong bond that makes the greens and turkey have true meaning. This easy cornbread dressing recipe can stand up to Granny’s for sure, and it is easy enough to not scare anyone away from attempting to successfully recreate it. I’ll hush now. Let’s get cookin’!
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Ingredients
32 oz chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom
3 sticks/ribsof celery, chopped
1/3 cup onion, chopped
1/3 cup bell pepper, chopped(optional)
ground sage
garlic powder (opt)
salt & pepper
Aunt Jemaima’s self-rising corn meal mix (or however you choose to prepare unsweetened cornbread)
1 egg for the final mixture
eggs per cornbread instructions
milkper cornbread instructions
vegetable oilper cornbread instructions
Directions
Prepare cornbread
Prepare Cornbread by following the directions on the package, prepare 2 large or 3 mediumpansof cornbread. (pans pictured above made 2 large pans of dressing)
Let cornbread cool. With your hands or with a food processor, crumble cornbread completely, thoroughly, and smoothly into a large roasting pan or aluminum pan. My granny would freeze and save leftover cornbread starting early in the month – eating cornbread was nearly a daily thing back then.
Related: Cake for dessert? Make this Vintage Pound Cake Recipe
Prepare cornbread dressing mixture
Preheat oven to 350 °
Begin bymixing in 1/2 can of cream of mushroom and 1/2 can of cream of chicken and all of the chopped vegetables into the crumbled cornbread, and mix well.
Next, pour 1/2 – 3/4 of your chicken broth. Fold and stir until the consistency is even all over. Once this is folded in completely to the mixture, if the consistency isn’t smooth or slightly chunky, continue to add the creams in. If necessary, add more broth. You want to mixture to be smooth – no huge chunks, but definitely not runny with liquids.Once the mixture has reached a smooth but thick consistency add in sage, garlic powder, salt, pepper. For safe measure, add in 1/2 tsp of sage at a time. For the risk takers (like me), just sprinkle it on and season to taste. Your mixture should never become green from adding too much sage, and it should never be over salted. Too much seasoning is indeed, a bad thing.Test taste your mixture.
Lastly, stir one egg and add it thoroughly throughout the entire mixture. This helps to hold it all together.
Bake
Smooth the top of the mixture to an even level. Cover (with lid or foil) and place in preheated oven for 1.5hours, until golden brown on the top and lightly browned on the edges. While the dressing is cooking, Do not stir the mixture after it has started baking. Taste and check the texture of the dressing if necessary, but do not stir.
After removing from the oven, let the dressing sit – do not eat it immediately. It is still very hot and continues to cook from its internal heat at this point.
There ya have it! This recipe was complied from lessons on the art of cooking cornbread dressing by my sister, my Aunts, cousins and my friend Jasmine. It takes a village. We hope y’all enjoy!
What is one dishthat is just absolutely necessary at your family holiday gatherings?Let me know in the comments below!
Wow, that looks amazing! We always have dressing (I still call it stuffing though we don’t stuff it) and my family ALWAYS has LeSeur Very Young Small Early Peas. I think we just like the name. (But they taste great too!) Pinning this.
Reply
Addiesays
Thanks, Kirsten! I haven’t had those peas before, but I love peas so that sounds like a yummy tradition!!
Reply
Nelda Andersonsays
The Dressing Recipe is very similar to the way I make Dressing. I make a large Roaster full. I crumble the cornbread the same. But then I toast it with my oven broiler stirring occasionally to insure all is toasted. This prevents Soggy Dressing. I use a lot of chicken broth and add a fair amount of chicken for even better flavor. I use about three eggs depending on the amount I’m making. I make it pretty soupy with the broth and just a tiny bit of milk. Adding onion and celery precooked in broth that I use. Also a small amount of onion for a slight crunch. Cook until firm but don’t overcook which would make it dry.
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Joycesays
This is a fantastic recipe for cornbread dressing, I can’t wait to try next month for thanksgiving
Reply
Addiesays
I hope you enjoy it! I’m excited for some dressing this time of year, too!
While both styles generally use the same ingredients -- cornmeal, flour, eggs, and baking powder -- the variance lies in the flavor and texture. Northern-style cornbread tends to be sweeter, moister, and cake-like compared to its Southern counterpart.
If your dressing doesn't turn out right, don't fret. You can usually fix it. If you find your stuffing is too dry, add additional warmed broth to it, stir well, and return to the oven, checking periodically. If the stuffing is overly wet and too gummy, cook it uncovered for a bit longer, checking periodically.
So stuffing is cooked inside the bird.Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish. Additionally, dressing, especially in the American South, is often made with cornbread instead of pieces of a baguette or plain ol' white bread.
The earliest ancestor of cornbread dressing as we know it is a dish called “kush.” Food writer and historian Michael Twitty says the word hails from Islamic West Africa and is related to the term “couscous,” a popular dish made from tiny balls of grains like semolina wheat or millet.
There are cornmeal puddings served with sweet sauces, but no Southern cook would risk the spoiling of her cornbreads by sweetening them." In 1937, the Times reported that "cornbread in Kentucky is made with white, coarsely ground cornmeal. Never, never are sugar and wheat flour used in cornbread.
Cornmeal: You can use any grind of cornmeal (fine, medium, or coarse), but we prefer a fine or medium grind. I especially enjoy the flavor of Bob's Red Mill's stone-ground cornmeal. Note that bags labeled as polenta are likely cornmeal. If you already have polenta at home, you can use it to make cornbread.
The stuffing should be moist but not wet. If there is a puddle of broth at the bottom of the bowl, you've added too much. Add more bread to soak up the excess moisture. If the mix is still dry and crumbly, add more liquid and toss gently until it starts to clump together.
If your cornbread dressing is mushy, be sure you baked it in a wide enough pan. Plenty of surface area will help the top crisp and the bottom bake completely. Also, be sure you measured your ingredients properly and didn't add too much liquid.
If the stuffing came out too wet and soggy (aka bread soup!) try not to over mix it, otherwise it'll turn into mush. Curtis Stone says to pour it on a large sheet tray and spread it out. Bake it on high heat to crisp it up, but make sure it doesn't burn.
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.
The name came from the Algonquin word apan, meaning "baked." The Narragansett word for cornbread, nokechick, became no-cake and then hoe-cake. Because cornbread traveled well, some began calling it journey cake, which evolved into the name Johnny cake. But whatever it was called, it was all cornbread.
Here are the guidelines for refrigerating vs freezing the dressing. Make ahead and refrigerate: Make up to 2 days ahead and store, covered and uncooked, in the fridge. Bake the day you plan to serve it. Make ahead and freeze: Make up to one month ahead; cover well and freeze.
Cornbread is a beloved food that accompanies everything from a hearty bowl of white beans or chili to a feast of BBQ with a side of turnip greens. Though Southerners think of cornbread as their own, the history of cornbread says otherwise.
Northern cornbreads tend to be more cake-like, on the sweet side, with a finer crumb due to more flour in the mixture. Southern cornbread is flavored with bacon grease, and cooked in a cast iron skillet, a perfect side for barbecues, or chili.It also tends to be rather crumbly.
Southern cornbread has traditionally been made with little to no sugar and a higher cornmeal-to-flour ratio, while Northern style cornbread is sweeter and more cake-like.
In a large bowl mix together the corn meal, flour, salt, and baking powder. In a separate bowl mix together the eggs, butter, and buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until well blended.
Types of cornmeal: Cornmeal can be categorized primarily by two factors: color and grind size. Yellow cornmeal has the most prominent corn flavor, while white cornmeal has a more subtle, delicate flavor (it's especially nice in a ricotta cornmeal cake).
Introduction: My name is Greg Kuvalis, I am a witty, spotless, beautiful, charming, delightful, thankful, beautiful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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