Cornbread Stuffing
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Made with homemade cornbread, crumbled sausage, fresh sage and thyme. So crumbly and so good. Truly a family-favorite!
Featured Comment
I do love a classic Thanksgiving stuffing, but my heart will always remain with this cornbread dressing forever and ever.
Ingredients
Cornbread
We’ll take any excuse to use our favorite, crumbly homemade buttermilk cornbread.
Sausage
We use mild ground pork sausage but you can also use chicken or turkey sausage.
Butter
A quintessential holiday ingredient.
Garlic, onion and celery
Classic stuffing necessities, all cooked in butter until fragrant and tender.
Fresh herbs
This is a great chance to use up all your fresh herbs (from your turkey and other side dishes). We love the combination of parsley, sage and thyme here but you can also use other herbs of your choosing. Dried herbs can be substituted in a pinch.
Chicken stock
Or turkey stock! The better quality your stock, the better your stuffing. Homemade stock is even better.
Eggs
The binder to hold everything together while keeping your stuffing nice and moist.
I mean, nothing beats a crumbly, made-from-scratch buttermilk cornbread, right? You take that, toast them into lovely 1-inch cornbread cubes and mix with crumbled sausage, pecans, and all the fresh herbs for the most epic dressing, stuffing situation. Especially when serving with a piping hot gravy soaked piece of turkey and a slice of pumpkin cheesecake for dessert.
tips and tricks for success
- Use homemade cornbread. The key ingredient here is homemade cornbread (can be made 1-2 days in advance).
- Keep your stuffing moist. When reheating stuffing, add a splash of chicken stock (or turkey juices) to keep from drying out.
- Prep the night before. Stuffing is one of those great sides that you can prep ahead of time, assembling everything the night before, allowing all the flavors to come together overnight.
what to serve with cornbread stuffing
Cornbread Stuffing: Frequently Asked Questions
Stuffing is cooked inside the turkey, soaking up all the juices. Dressing is typically cooked separately from the turkey in a casserole dish with additional liquid. The two terms are used interchangeably, and it really depends on who you’re asking. This recipe is technically a dressing as we are not stuffing our turkey.
Yes! We love using our homemade cornbread but you can also use your favorite cornbread mix.
Absolutely! But because dried herbs are often more potent/concentrated than fresh herbs, you need less when using dry. The correct ratio is 1 tablespoon fresh herbs to 1 teaspoon dried herbs.
Yes! This can be made and assembled the night before, letting it come to room temperature for about 30 minutes prior to baking, adding a splash of chicken stock (or turkey juices) to keep from drying out.
Cornbread Stuffing
Ingredients
- 1 Buttermilk Cornbread, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 pound mild ground pork sausage
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 ribs celery, diced
- 1 cup chopped pecan halves, toasted
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage leaves
- 1 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme leaves
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly oil a 9 x 13 baking dish or coat with nonstick spray.
- Spread Buttermilk Cornbread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Place into oven and bake until crisp and golden, about 13-15 minutes; set aside and let cool.
- Heat olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add sausage and cook until browned, about 5-8 minutes, making sure to crumble the sausage as it cooks. Transfer sausage to a paper towel-lined plate.
- Melt butter in the Dutch oven. Add garlic, onion and celery, and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, about 4-5 minutes. Stir in pecans, parsley, sage and thyme until fragrant, about 1 minute.
- Remove from heat; stir in cornbread cubes and sausage; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Stir in chicken stock and eggs until absorbed and well combined. let stand 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until liquid is absorbed.
- Spread bread mixture into the prepared baking dish. Place into oven and bake until top is browned, about 40-45 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Did you make this recipe?
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Looks delish is it a stuffing or dressing?
The flavor was good, but mine did not look anything like the photograph. In fact I don’t know how the photograph got the way it looks in light of the directions about mixing in the cornbread into the vegetables as well as adding the chicken stock. Possibly I was supposed to brown the cornbread on each side? It just all fell apart.
This dressing is delicious! I usually make a very similar one, but wanted to try a different recipe this year. It turned out great. The cornbread recipe is amazing, too…after cutting it up and baking the cubes, I kept wanting to steal bites from the counter as they cooled. I didn’t have fresh herbs so I used 1.5 tsp each of the dried versions. Definitely my family’s new fave dressing for holiday dinners!
How much of this can I make in advance? Obviously I can bake the cornbread and cook the sausage, but can I combine everything in advance the day before, let it sit in the fridge overnight and bake the next day? This looks so good!
I have tried so many delicious homemade stuffing recipes and still none of them have made me want to give up boxed stuffing. This one looked different from other homemade recipes and the photos looked mouthwateringly delicious that I thought maybe this could be the one..! So even though it was double the work (if you want to make your own cornbread, which I did) I decided this one was worth a try.
I had high hopes and although it was still pretty good, it wasn’t a home-run for myself nor for my group of friends.
For context, I followed the recipe to a T, including baking the cornbread from scratch using DD’s linked recipe (which I’ve made before). I’ve made tons of recipes from Damn Delicious that usually get our friends raving and wanting 2nd and 3rd helpings, but this one (although still tasty!) wasn’t one of them.
I will say though that presentation is 5 stars! Turned out looking just like the main photo! Was the most beautiful side dish amongst all the other TG mushy sides!
I guess I’m not mad about boxed stuffing still holding the pedestal. It makes TG day prep 20x easier, lol.
Thank you DD team for this recipe and all the others you put out! I’m sure this w
We love cornbread stuffing and this was perfect for our Friendsgiving! Thanks for the yummy recipe!
Can I ask how much spice I would use, if I did dried instead of fresh.
This is a great recipe, I do not use tyme or sage, but add some dried cranberries. (about half cup)
Chungah, I have two questions. Adding eggs to a bread stuffing tends to make it clump together, yet your cornbread stuffing doesn’t look like it stuck together. How did you avoid the clumping? Also, have you ever made this stuffing ahead of time and then microwaved it? If so, did the sausage make it mushy or soggy when you reheated it?