Everything I know about cornbread dressing—and Thanksgiving—I learned from my mother, which she in turn learned from her mother. It is a long line of resourceful Southern cooks, and I trust them with this important meal completely. The secret?
It's all about the butter! My very wise nanna once said, "Whatever the amount of butter called for in a dressing recipe, double it, triple it, heck, even quadruple it!"
So here it is: I am giving you our family recipe, a true American classic that has been passed down through the generations, and is the result of many years of tweaking, testing, and perfecting. This is truly as Southern as it gets. With two sticks of butter, five cups of chicken stock, and five eggs, I can promise you it's the moistest, most delicious cornbread dressing you'll ever taste. In fact, I guarantee it.
One more thing. Nanna's cooking lesson stuck with me as a little girl, long before I ever understood anything about calories, fat, diabetes, and heart disease. And while I don't double up on the butter every day, Thanksgiving is definitely not the time to be cutting out the good stuff. And besides, nanna lived to be a 103 and ate fried chicken until the very end. I'd say she was a very wise woman indeed.
Southern-style Cornbread Dressing
Serves 10-12For the buttermilk cornbread:
1 cup plain yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup whole buttermilk
For the cornbread dressing:
1 (14 ounce) bag herb-seasoned stuffing, preferably Pepperidge Farm*
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, divided
2 cups finely chopped sweet onion
1 1/2 cups finely chopped celery
5 cups chicken or turkey stock
5 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons dried sage
Salt and pepper
For the buttermilk cornbread, grease a 10" cast iron skillet and place on center rack in the oven. Preheat oven to 425°F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, melted butter, and buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated.
Pour the batter into the preheated skillet and smooth the top. Bake until cornbread is golden yellow, about 16 to 19 minutes. doesn't overcook or dry out. Immediately remove the cornbread from the skillet and allow to cool.
The cornbread can be made up to 2 days in advance when using for the dressing. Store until needed, then crumble and follow instructions for the dressing.
For the cornbread dressing, preheat oven to 350°F.
Crumble the cornbread into small pieces (makes about 5 cups). Combine the crumbled cornbread and stuffing mix in an extra large mixing bowl (or stock pot) and toss to combine.
Melt 1 stick butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and celery and sauté, stirring frequently, until soft and translucent, about 10 to12 minutes. Add the onion and celery to the cornbread mixture.
Melt the remaining stick of butter. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter, chicken stock, eggs, and sage, and whisk to combine. Add to the cornbread mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Season generously with kosher salt and pepper. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch casserole dish. Bake, uncovered, until the dressing is set and golden brown, about 45 minutes to 50 minutes.
*Pepperidge Farm stuffing may not be available to everyone or you may prefer not to use it; biscuits (homemade or store bought) make a good substitute.
Related: The Great Stuffing Debate: Pepperidge Farm vs. All The Rest!
(Images: Nealey Dozier)
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Comments (17)
that sounds out of this world! my southern mom had a special ingredient in hers too: she added creamed corn.
Cornbread dressing is so much better than stuffing in my book!
I cannot get pepperidge farm items also buttermilk is difficult to find. Most cornmeal is for polenta. Any ideas for substitutions?
I love the fact that you featured a recipe for dressing! I feel like a lot of people don't know what I'm talking about when I mention it (granted, I no longer live in the South).
My dad's side of the family is from North Carolina. They always made cornbread stuffing with two additions to the recipe you have. One is chopped hard boiled egg. The other is shucked raw oysters and a little brine, nestled gently into the top of the stuffing. It sounds crazy, but it's kind of like having oysters Rockefeller upside-down.
I second that. This looks lovely but in in my book, it ceased to be cornbread dressing with the addition of the stuffing. It's a great 'cheat' tho if you like stuffing!
I can't help you w/the pepperidge farm stuff (I'm thinking online source...) but you can easily make the type of buttermilk this recipe calls for (not "fresh buttermilk" but rather an acidic, tangy milk for baking) - just add 1T white vinegar to a cup of milk and let it sit until it "clabbers" or starts curdling. That's close to store-bought/cultured buttermilk and I use it all the time for baking.
In my (southern) family's cornbread dressing recipe, we add bacon to it, and saute the onion and celery in the bacon grease. So yummy...
I was delighted to see a recipe for cornbread dressing, and I'm confident that this dressing tastes delicious--but I'm disappointed it calls for a boxed stuffing, especially since I have no access to it.
I've never seen or tried dressing with boxed stuffing; we add hard boiled eggs to ours; but no sugar in the cornbread! Sometimes we add crawfish and the trinity to the cornbread, broth, eggs and sage.
Granny's Cornbread Dressing & Giblet Gravy:
Dressing:
3 c plain corn meal
1 c flour
3 eggs
1 large onion, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
turkey drippings
Mix meal, flour & salt & cook on top of stove in iron skillet.*
Turn over cook until done. Do not brown.
Break up bread in large bowl.
Add eggs, onion, salt & pepper & turkey drippings.
Add water if necessary; mixture should be thin.
Bake @ 500
Giblet Gravy:
Turkey parts*
Dressing mixture
Eggs, boiled & chopped
Onion, chopped
Boil & finely chop turkey parts.
Place in boiler w/small amount of water.
Add finely chopped eggs & onion.
Add dressing mixture to thicken.
Simmer, stirring occasionaly
*I pop this in the oven in my iron skillet, no turning necessary. No harm done if you get distracted & it browns it a bit.
*Turkey parts = that lil packet you remove from the cavity of a whole bird prior to roasting. Boil them ALL for the broth, then remove what you can't stomach & chop what's left. Do NOT toss the liver even it you hate it. Really, I don't care for liver myself but I tell you from experience it enhances the flavor. Just be discreet when adding it. No one will notice its presence but its absence is noticeable.
Real cornbread is the key to great cornbread dressing. I think the best way to make it is to get a bag of self-rising cornmeal mix and follow the instructions on the bag. It's not as floury as the recipe in the story. Also make it in a big iron skillet so you get plenty of crispy crust and less soft insides. I've started to put more mushrooms in my dressing for a deep earthy flavor. Here's the link to the recipe.
http://wp.me/p2LOx3-Ca
@Kathleen from E18 - White vinegar, like the earlier post said, would do. If you don't have white vinegar, a tablespoon of lemon juice does the same thing.
Any dry bread or biscuits crumbled will work instead of stuffing cubes.The dressing will be flavored by the broth, butter, veggies, sage, etc. And yes, this is a common dressing in some parts of the south. My Grandmother, mother and aunts all used bread AND cornbread. Try it.
@hippyvieja - you took the words out of my mouth. My mother-in-law is allergic to yeast (i.e. bread/stuffing mix/etc.) so she subs homemade biscuits for the stuffing mix. It's delicious!
Came back for more & saw my last post disappeared (?) Anyhoo...just wanted to say thanks for the link. LOVE the variations you shared. Cornbread dressing is my all time fave but I usually only cook it during the holidays. No more! I'll be working my way through your variations throughout the year. They ALL sound delish:)
"Real cornbread is the key to great cornbread dressing"
Yes & amen. I do disagree with your comment re the addition of 'regular bread' but that won't deter me. Looking forward to lots of fun in the kitchen for months to come. My old standby won't change during the holidays but I'll now be enjoying one of my faves year round. Thanks for sharing.
Buttermilk isn't buttermilk. They stopped producing real buttermilk years ago. The stuff they sell and label as buttermilk is just a low fat milk product. It's a waste because it won't produce any of the texture or rise of real buttermilk or add the real flavor of buttermilk. Real buttermilk is the heavy cream from the churn. Not only does it have a very distinct tangy flavor, but the acids in it create a tender crumb and more rise because it acts to enhance the leavening agents. My grandma was a southerner. She used to drink buttermilk right out of the carton.
Traditional, cornbread doesn't have flour. But so many people make it with flour these days because they can't get a soft moist bread without it. We can argue about the flour all day, but at the end of the day, if a cook can't make a cornbread worth eating without adding flour, then why bother. That's my point about the buttermilk by the way--if it doesn't taste like buttermilk, doesn't produce the textures of buttermilk, doesn't add the the tang of buttermilk, why bother.