Homemade Stuffing Without A Bird
Growing up, this was the only way my mom made the stuffing for inside the turkey. Stuffing that didn’t fit in the turkey was put into a casserole dish and baked separately. Golden brown on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. Every Thanksgiving my family wants to eat Stove Top Stuffing with our dinner, not my choice. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Stove Top Stuffing but there is no comparison to traditional stuffing, especially on a holiday.
Using your hands, tear the bread into small pieces and let it sit out, uncovered, overnight.
Whisk the eggs.
Rinse, pat dry and dice the celery.
Dice the onion.
In a large bowl add the bread, sage, egg, onion, celery, salt and pepper. Toss until well combined.
Add about a cup of chicken broth then using your hands mix well. When I make my dressing, I add enough broth so I can’t see any pieces of bread. If you still see bread pieces, add a little more chicken broth and keep mixing with your hands. Spray a 3 qt casserole dish with cooking oil. Put the stuffing into the dish and cover. Bake in a preheated 350º oven for 1-1/2 hours or until the center is cooked.
Use a fork and check the center to make sure it is completely cooked.
Homemade Stuffing Without A Bird
http://www.InDianesKitchen.com
Ingredients
- 1 large loaf of white bread
- 2 eggs
- 2 medium stalks celery, ends cut off
- 1 medium onion
- 1/2 tsp ground sage
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- 1-2 cans chicken broth
*Optional: Parts of the bird (liver, heart, gizzard) chopped up and added to bread
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- Using your hands, tear the bread into small pieces and let it sit out, uncovered, overnight.
- Whisk the eggs.
- Rinse, pat dry and dice the celery.
- Dice the onion.
- In a large bowl add the bread, sage, egg, onion, celery, salt and pepper. Toss until well combined.
- Add about a cup of chicken broth then using your hands mix well. When I make my dressing, I add enough broth so I can’t see any pieces of bread. If you still see bread pieces, keep adding a little more chicken broth and keep mixing with your hands.
- Spray a 3 qt casserole dish with cooking oil. Put the stuffing into the dish and cover. Bake in the oven for 1-1/2 hours or until the center is cooked. Use a fork to see if the center is cooked, then serve.
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Categories: Bread, Broth, Eggs, Onion, Spices/Seasoning, Stuffing, Vegetables/Slaws/Salads
Looks good. I’ve always made cornbread dressing. I might try this!
Thank you Robbye. Were you brought up on corn bread dressing? I love corn bread but not in the dressing and I’m sure it’s because this is what I ate my whole life.
No, we actually never had traditional Christmas or Thanksgiving meals as my mother had problems with anything to do with “foul.” Our school had cornbread dressings and if we were at a relatives they made cornbread dressing. As a result, I always did after I left home.
That makes sense!
🙂
Thank you and I hope you feel better soon!
Thank you. We’re finally on the mend!
Thank you so much for sharing my recipe!
I confess I’m not and never have been a fan of stuffing but maybe I’ve never found the right recipe.
I like that you have an open mind Sheree.
Thanks Diane
You’re welcome Sheree
This is a very interesting dish. We’ve never made turkey (let alone any stuffing) – it’s just something that’s not big in South Africa. But I think this stuffing might find a place in our kitchen. I like that you mention one can add bits of the bird (chicken in our case). Definitely worth a try, thanks Diane.
This is a trigger food for me, I love it that much. I hope you get a chance to try it Corna!
I rarely actually put the stuffing inside the bird since I use the carcass to make stock for soup.
It does eliminate a lot of fat getting into the stuffing from the turkey. One year my turkey was so fat and the stuffing turned out awful.
My mom did the same thing. She stuffed the bird tight and then baked the rest of the stuffing in a casserole dish. Everyone liked that better because it had crispy tops!
Yes the crispy top is the best part. I always wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner because my mom always kept the leftover dressing and the next day I was craving it.
What a great idea. I love stuffing but not turkey so this would be good to make !
I’m with you, if not for the tradition of turkey I would prefer not to have it.
Some people like their stuffing more moist than others. I enjoy it either way, but you do have to allow for extra roasting time if it goes in the bird. I guess it is time to start thinking about that Thanksgiving bird. Thanks for the “push.”
Thank you Linda. I get out easy this year as my son is cooking. 🤣
This reminds me of my mom, we used to make stuffing together all the time. Thanks Diane. Hugs, C
You’re welcome Cheryl, food memories are the best!
Yes- always make more for sandwiches filled with stuffing and turkey pieces. 🙂
There you go again! I never heard of a turkey and stuffing sandwich!
🙂 You will have to try a turkey and stuffing sandwich the day after Thanksgiving this year Diane. You will be hoarding enough fixin’s for a sandwich in a Tupperware in the far corner of the fridge just for you every Thanksgiving going forward.
Hahaha not with Stove Top Stuffing which is what my son will be making. Now my homemade stuffing I would try! 🤣
My mom always made her homemade stuffing and the last few years for stuffed pork chops or if we had a turkey breast, I convinced her to use Stovetop Stuffing, but she still cut up her celery and put some spices in it to make it like homemade. I bought some the other day to make up a little for one of my holiday crockpot meals. You can actually make a layer of it in the crockpot as it cooks up fine.
That’s a great idea Linda. So you freeze the individual meals? I have added egg to Stove Top and baked it in the oven and it tasted just like homemade too.
No, I just refrigerate them only. I wish I could make enough for four meals, but I don’t know if they would keep for four days, so I just have it the day I make it and the next two days. I had planned to have an electrician in to see if I could get a small microwave. I wanted wiring checked in the kitchen and also for the TV room. That didn’t happen – someone would think I had a hoarding problem if they saw that TV room. Hopefully next year. This morning I was thinking maybe I should turn the living room into “my hobby room” eventually, not now as it is too close to the dog, but down the road. No one comes here that it needs to look like a living room. We never sat in the living room though – it is next to the garage and it not cozy looking, nor feeling … furniture is nice (Early American) but not comfortable. A big Early American rocker with a velvet seat and back cushion which I’ve sat in for photos through the years … sit five minutes and you want out of the chair as it’s so darn uncomfortable. It was just a thought since I look at the TV room which is very small – smaller than the bedrooms. I also wanted to put my framed prints up I had from work and there not much wall space. And the TV from the 90s should go too.
You definitely will wonder why you didn’t get the microwave sooner after you get things checked out. Luckily all they need is a regular outlet so the electrician can check your wires and even put in a new outlet, I did all our outlets. That sounds like a great idea in the living room Linda. Then you can set up your table and leave it there to use every day if you want.
I did have a microwave at one time Diane but it was downstairs as my mom had the toaster oven on the butcher block next to the stove and she used that all the time. The microwave was big and I had it downstairs on the old freezer, just a small freezer we had to put meat in for the Winter, but it had issues and we just kept it to store things in and put the microwave on top. That was a heavy-duty plug. I went downstairs to heat up something one day and there was a huge black spider on top of the microwave and it was a darkish corner of the basement so I decided I didn’t want to use it anymore – yes stupid. I gave it to Marge as hers just broke a day or so before that.
You and your spiders but lucky for Marge!
Yes, I should have just found another place for it, but space and outlets are at a premium downstairs as well. I was looking down there the other day. There is a living room suite downstairs, coffee table, two end tables. We brought them over from Canada and that house had bigger rooms, especially the living room, so the furniture was too big, so my parents bought a new living room suite – very, very uncomfortable furniture. It is a couch and chair and a rocking chair – yes, it looks nice, but not comfortable to sit on at all. Right now there is stuff piled on each of them I’m sorry to say (both upstairs and downstairs). I was thinking why do I keep it … the area rug is downstairs as well. Be better having more shelves. The furniture is in good condition, though old.
Too bad you can’t sell the furniture in the basement, it would give you so much more room. I can’t figure out why the new styles of furniture have to be so uncomfortable. They are hard to get out of (for older people) and there is no support for your back. I always have to put a pillow behind my back. Heck, sell the upstairs furniture and move the other furniture upstairs. 🤣
Sell all the furniture and get those storage hassocks … out of sight, out of mind. I have a few but they are small and you can’t put much into them. I’ve seen some that are six feet long … that’s the solution. Get rid of the living room suite downstairs, my wooden desk and the computer hutch – great. No more clutter!
If you ever decide to get rid of it, I know we have places here that will pick up furniture and things for free to use for the less fortunate. Maybe they have something there so you don’t have to lift them. It would be amazing to get all that space back wouldn’t it! I’m looking forward to finding more things to pitch, after Christmas though.
I would love to have more space downstairs to put shelving units. I have two wardrobe closets, two tall cabinets with shelves and a wooden cupboard with shelves, plus the metal shelving units (probably eight shelves), but the cupboard shelves have things I no longer use, nor will I ever use them. And there are holiday things everywhere as I decorated at home for every holiday and decorated my office at work as well – there is stuff, stuff and more stuff. The basement is way worse than upstairs, but today I spent a good part of the day looking for the new extension cords I bought for the Windows 11 laptop – two different sizes (six foot and twelve foot cords – how did I lose them? There is probably an Amazon package somewhere and I’ve overlooking it, like I recently found a box with “The Club” in it I bought in 2022 with my OnStar sunsetted.
OMG is the Club still sold. I remember those commercials and they seemed to be a good product.
I still have the original Club I bought for the Regal and it works, however, I could not find the key when I looked for it. I used it until I got this car which had OnStar, so I put it away. I ordered a new Club and then found the key which I recognized right away, on a set of keys that belonged to my mom. She insisted we each have a key (which makes sense as you weren’t going anywhere with the steering wheel locked). So I totally forgot I ordered it. My car does have anti-theft on it, but OnStar would track it down if it was stolen (like the old LoJack device from back in the day).
On Star has so many nice services! I remember the club was huge and they advertised it for Christmas gifts.
Yes they do. I could still get OnStar put on my phone for a reduced rate since they were sunsetting it on my car (which has 2G and they were no longer having 2G support). Yes, the Club would be good for self-defense as well. It is quite heavy!
It is always a great side and your recipe looks delicious. I like to make this with pork chops too.
Thank you so much Bernadette. This would be wonderful with pork chops.
Hi Diane, this is a stuffing recipe that has been passed down to me. It’s from Orkney and tastes so good. 2 cups of breadcrumbs, 2 cups of oatmeal, one onion chopped, salt and pepper, enough butter to form a thick mess, lol, then flour a muslin cloth, place the suffing in the centre, tie up tightly with string then steam for at least two hours, checking water levels in the pan oh and set the muslin stuffing on a plate first. It is delicious and can be done a day before, kept in fridge and heated up in oven. xx
Hi Adele, this sounds delicious and I love that it can be made ahead of time then heated up. I have never heard of steaming stuffing or using muslin! Is Orkney in Scotland?
Well we are an archpeligo of islands off the top of Scotland, the islands used to belong to Norway/Denmark so we have a wonderful Viking history.
Fascinating!
The hubby loves stuffing. We didn’t do a turkey this year and did the regular size stuffing though. I’ll have to share this traditional homemade recipe with him!
Your hubby and I would get along well together! I could eat leftovers for a week!
I cannot wait until my house in filled with the smell of sage and sweet pies! I love stuffings!
Best time of the year, the holidays!
The very BEST!!!!