My family mixes pepperidge farm stuffing mix with jimmy dean sage sausage and bakes it to death. And it is amazing.

You'll have to tell us which one wins!

I think that the key here is to beat Pepperidge Farms at their own game. Clearly your family has had their tastes shaped by a particular kind of stuffing, and no matter how good the chestnut/cornbread/quince/oyster mix is that you make up, they will always prefer the PF mix because that's what they like.

So maybe deconstruct the PF recipe, and make it from scratch? Use good bread, cut fine, and fresh herbs, and all that. Maybe work off the Zuni bread salad recipe a bit too? But don't depart too much from the style of the box, just make it much, much better.

Last year I made a fairly straightforward sage stuffing from Epicurious and it was fantastic. I used homemade French bread and a brown turkey stock (also on Epicurious)- I think that these upgrades made it special. Perhaps something like this would still be traditional enough to appeal to the family but with enough extra flavor/texture to take the win!

Ours is a really simple recipe, just white bread cubed and left in the (cold) oven overnight to dry it out, lots of butter with onions and Bells turkey seasoning. We always have a ton so half goes in the bird, and half goes in a casserole dish, but the actually stuffed stuffing always tastes the best to me.

I'm heartbroken we're having dinner at someone else's house this year, because the stuffing is my favorite.

This is my favorite stuffing: http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/cranberry-cornbread-stuffing ... I have made it for years (all from scratch except the bread). Everyone LOVES it. Except the weirdos who eat nothing but the oyster dressing. Blech.

My grandmother's is a base of soft wheat bread chopped in the food processor, a whole pound of bacon, fried and crumbled, bacon grease, butter, onions and celery chopped with water in the blender, ground marjoram and ground thyme. It tends to be a fairly "wet" stuffing, easily baked wrapped in foil next to the turkey.

My family also likes the pepperidge farm mix but we mix it in with homemade cornbread, celery onion etc---so you might consider a souped up version rather than a replacement, its hard to improve on a time-tested classic on Thanksgiving.

My family is a Pepperidge Farm Family. NOT the cornbread kind though. And we always do it stuffed to the gills with shrimp, seasoning veggies and spices. Its SO good and we end up eating spoonfuls of it all day before it can even make it in the turkey!

I like an apple and sausage combo in the stuffing. We usually use pepperidge farms crumbs too, the rustic ones not the cubes.

Perhaps you could up the game by making a loaf of sturdy white bread and making the breadcrumbs from scratch.

Mine (like jkpenny's) is pretty straightforward: homemade bread, cubed and dried, onions and celery sauteed in butter, S&P, poultry seasoning, parsley and sage (still in the garden, yay), a few eggs and the broth. Like my mother taught me, I make the broth the day before from those giblets and neck in the innards.

A few years ago I tried to get fancy and put some currants and sausage in it and almost had a mutiny on my hands. It's best to not mix with tradition.

We use Pepperidge Farms too. But add pecans, boiled eggs, halve the stock combo and replace with good beer, and enough poultry seasoning and butter to make one blush.

I eat it, unabashedly, like a pig.

How about Marilyn Monroe's? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/dining/10marilyn.html?_r=1&ref=dining

my dad's recipe: lots of diced onion and celery cooked in crisco, add some torn up loaves of bread that have been dried in the oven for a few minutes, salt & pepper and fresh chopped parsley...tada the tastiest stuffing! my mom likes the pepperidge farm stuffing with RAISINS (ICK!) so there is an ongoing battle for which is going to take the stage each year. maybe we should start the cookoff tradition, too?

Two ideas:

First, most cornbread is too sweet for stuffing (though I generally choose a food with corn in it over a food without corn). So I'm on the bread side of this argument.

Second, the ingredient no one seems to have mentioned but that I consider essential is mushrooms. Mushrooms, mushrooms, mushrooms! They lend an earthiness and heartiness to the stuffing, reminding us of the origins of turkey as a wild bird. Yet they also add some B vitamins and bulk to what may become overly sodden and/or greasy.

It's been mentioned before but it's worth stating it again. Jimmy Dean sausage in the stuffing is AMAZING. My Mom has to make a separate batch in a dish outside the Turkey because there is never enough for us kids to take home.

We were Pepperidge Farm Stuffing devotees, too. Until I made Pioneer Woman's cornbread stuffing when I hosted Thanksgiving (a rarity). My dad now asks my mom to make that stuffing instead of Pepperidge Farm.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/11/stuffing_dressing_my_favorite_thanksgiving_food/

I should also add that the Pioneer Woman will be appearing on Bobby Flay's Smackdown show for a Thanksgiving smackdown.

I do the typical sage/onion//celery/butter stuffing but I use large cubes of sourdough and pumpernickel. It really adds something to it.

We make some variation of the stuffing I grew up with. I call it
unstuffing because we make balls and cook them in the pan with the turkey but not in the turkey.

Oh boy. I'm overwhelmed with all of your responses (in a good way)! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now...I've got my work cut out for me.

You must must must try Craig Claiborne's Corn Bread Stuffing. Use the blue box, Jiffy Corn Bread, and add crumbled breakfast sausage. It gets rave reviews every year!

My sister and I made this one year, and it was a smash hit. The leeks really brought something extra to it. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/New-England-Sausage-Apple-and-Dried-Cranberry-Stuffing-812

I make a fairly standard bread, apple, and sausage stuffing, but my secret ingredient is slightly crushed Ritz crackers.

This one: http://www.food.com/recipe/the-best-turkey-dressing-stuffing-146134

I never even touched dressing/stuffing before I found this recipe. And it's one of the things I look forward to most at Thanksgiving dinner.

I hate to say it, but everyone does love the pre-packaged bread cube stuffing. I've tried other recipes, but the cubes always seem to win the contest. HOWEVER, I do buy my cubes from Williams Sonoma rather than Pepperidge Farms. Is it better? I have no idea. But it sounds better, doesn't it? WS also sells turkey stock!

On the fence myself, and cooking for a mere four, this year I'm using the PF cornbread bag but adding fresh mushrooms, breakfast sausage, sweet onion, maybe a shallot and fresh herbs. The truckload of butter arrives Wednesday ;)

PF can act as a decent canvas for whatever else you add - well, that's what I'm telling myself this year.

Ha! Pepperidge Farm Stuffing with TONS of onions sauteed in butter is my packaged guilty pleasure!