On Thanksgiving, if you gave me a plate just filled with my grandma's cornbread dressing, I would be a happy woman. Of course I love everything else that graces our Thanksgiving table (turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad, rolls, etc), but the cornbread dressing is what really does it for me.
I've had a lot of dressings/stuffings in my thirty seven years of life, but I have yet to find a recipe that is as delicious as my grandma's cornbread dressing. With simple ingredients of cornbread, bread, onion, celery, eggs, salt, sage, and chicken broth, it just goes to show that down home cookin' simple recipes can still be the most delightful.
If you really want to make this special, boil a whole chicken or chicken parts to get your broth. You can even use some of the chicken meat in the dressing itself. That's how Grandma does it, and we don't mess with perfection. You could use a store-bought broth if you are in a time crunch, but trust me, the homemade version will be so much better and more nutritious.
For the cornbread:
- 1 ½ cups cornmeal
- ½ cup flour
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp organic sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ cup milk
- 1 egg
- 6 T. butter, melted
- 1 T. bacon drippings, or another fat to coat pan
Add bacon drippings to cast iron pan and place in a 400 degree oven to melt while preparing cornbread batter.
Mix dry ingredients together.
Add wet ingredients and combine well.
Pour into hot cast iron and bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
- 1 batch of cornbread (see recipe in post)
- 10 slices of bread (white, wheat, sourdough, gluten free, etc)
- 1 large onion, chopped (approx. 1 ½ cups)
- 4-5 stalks celery, finely chopped (approx. 1 heaping cup)
- 4 tsp RUBBED sage, or to taste
- 2 tsp salt, possibly less if your broth is salted
- 6 eggs, beaten well
- 6-8 cups chicken stock (see note above about cooking chicken to get broth)
- chicken meat (optional)
- Prepare cornbread.
- Dry out bread overnight. Toast if you are in a time crunch.
- Crumble cornbread and bread together until fine.
- In a large mixing bowl, mix dry ingredients together.
- Add six cups of the broth. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.
- Add in eggs and stir.
- If needed, add extra broth. Mixture should be a bit soupy in consistency.
- Pour into a well greased, deep 9x13 baking dish.
- Bake covered, at 400 degrees for 1 hour.
- If it doesn't look set, uncover, and bake for additional time until it is firm but moist on the inside.
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