This Easy Stuffing Recipe will complete just about any meal!
Celery and onions are cooked with butter, and seasonings. It’s all tossed with dried bread cubes and broth, then topped with butter and baked until hot and golden.
Don’t get me wrong I love mashed potatoes, but I will always save room for homemade stuffing over potatoes. I could eat stuffing for every meal!
How to Make Turkey Stuffing
Stuffing is one of the most important dishes in a holiday or Thanksgiving dinner. Serve it alongside green bean casserole, mashed sweet potatoes, turkey, turkey gravy (of course), and pumpkin pie for dessert!
Seasoning – Poultry Seasoning is the best spice blend for this turkey stuffing recipe (and it can sometimes be sold out during Thanksgiving)! If you’ve never used poultry seasoning, it’s a savory blend of spices like sage, thyme, and rosemary and it adds delicious flavor to soups, stews, and casseroles. You can also use your own spices (or make Homemade Poultry Seasoning), sage is the most common spice and flavor in stuffing.
Additions – Some stuffing recipes include ingredients like carrots, raisins, or dried cranberries. While these can all be great additions, nothing compares to this classic stuffing recipe!
How To Make Stuffing
Bread – The trick to a good classic stuffing from scratch is making sure your bread is really dry before you add broth.
If you buy your bread a few days early, tear it or cut it into cubes and dry them in a bowl for a few days on your counter. Any kind of bread will do, I most often use a combo of brown and white.
In a pinch, I like to put fresh bread cubes in an oven at 300°F to dry them out for about 10 minutes (be sure not to brown/toast it)! If you dry fresh bread in the oven, you will not need as much broth.
Stuffing Casserole
I prefer to cook my stuffing in a casserole dish (which would technically make it dressing) or to make Crock Pot Stuffing. Cooking the turkey and stuffing separately ensures that they both reach the right temperatures without overcooking.
Stuffing can be made ahead of time and stored in the fridge in a casserole dish. If stuffing a turkey, stuffing should be room temperature or cool and not stuffed in the turkey until just before roasting.
If you do stuff your turkey, remember to completely cool the stuffing first. If you don’t, the bird will sit at an unsafe cooking temperature for too long. If stuffing a turkey, the center of the stuffing needs to be cooked to 165°F because the drippings from the bird enter the stuffing.
To Make Ahead
Stuffing is a great side as it can easily be made ahead of time! Simply prepare as directed, cover tightly, and refrigerate for up to 48 hours.
To bake, remove it from the fridge at least 30 minutes before baking. Prepare as directed (you may need to add a few minutes extra if it’s still cold from the fridge).
How To Freeze Stuffing
Everyone loves turkey dinner leftovers. Turkey dinner stacks or hot turkey sandwiches are my personal favorite ways to enjoy them, but sometimes you can’t get to them by the time they will go bad. Fear not, as turkey stuffing freezes well! Just pop it in the freezer and it should last several months.
To reheat stuffing, pop it in the oven at 350°F for about 20 minutes with a little broth on it to keep it from drying out.
Easy Stuffing Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 small onions diced
- 4 ribs celery diced
- ⅔ cup butter
- 1 ½ teaspoons poultry seasoning or ½ teaspoon ground sage
- black pepper
- salt to taste
- 12 cups bread cubes
- 3-4 cups chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley
- 1 tablespoon fresh herbs sage, thyme, rosemary
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, celery and poultry seasoning (and rosemary if using). Cook over medium-low until tender (do not brown), about 10-12 minutes.
- Place bread cubes in a large bowl. Add onion mixture, parsley and fresh herbs.
- Pour broth overtop until cubes are moist (but not soggy) and gently toss. You may not need all of the broth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Place mixture in a serving dish, dot with additional butter and cover.
- Bake 35 minutes, uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dinner
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I followed the recipe exactly, using 2 C of broth since I dried the bread at home. I baked almost 90 minutes, and although it was crisp around the edges, the rest of the casserole was soggy. Ugh.
Oh no Marilyn, how disappointing that the stuffing didn’t work out for you. It could have been the type of bread that may have not been as dense or wasn’t as dried out as ours was. If you do try it again, I would suggest adding the broth a little bit at a time just until moistened. I hope that helps!
Never thought of making my own stuffing but so easy.
My husband always makes croutons for our Cearar salads so I used that to start the recipe.
I had to cut the quantities in half since it was for the two of us and still had left overs.
Will make again and again. Thank you!
made this for christmas dinner & it was amazing. everyone enjoyed it. I pre-made the onion mixture with bacon the night before, dried the bread in the oven and put it all together.
My go-to recipe for dressing. Plus, I add apple for additional flavour and crunch.
Sounds delicious Beverly!
Just delicious. We couldn’t find a turkey and decided to stuff 2 chickens ….it was simply delicious filled with buttery goodness
Cook time is 55 minutes but the instructions are 35 mins covered and 10 mins uncovered. Please confirm the times.
55 minutes also includes the cooking of the onions and celery. The stuffing bakes for 35 minutes covered and 10 minutes uncovered.
My kids LOVED this recipe this Thanksgiving!!! My little Timmy couldn’t believe how well I cooked! My Husband, Richard, seemed to especially love the extra onions I added. Thank you for this recipe!
my grandmother used to toast the bread in a toaster, and dressing always came out awesome. seems like the simplest and quickest method to me.
That’s a great idea Carrie!
Hi there- which type of onions do you recommend for this recipe?
I use a regular white onion (with the yellow/brown skin) but any white onion will work just fine Maddie. Enjoy!
Looking to make this for a community dinner. What size is a serving, approximately?
The serving size would be approximately 1/2 cup but can vary slightly.
This was a hit (I followed except no onions bc of food restrictions). I used store biught bread cubes and the full 4 cups, because I’m not quiet sure when bread cubes become soggy vs moist and if it cooks different.