My grandmother would have had words about the word “stuffing.” In her kitchen it was dressing, it was cornbread, and it never went anywhere near the inside of a turkey.
She was right on both counts, as it turns out. Dressing baked in its own dish gets a crisp brown top and a soft, custardy middle, and it comes out of the oven when it is done rather than when the bird is. Stuffing packed into a cavity has to reach 165°F to be safe, and by the time it gets there the breast meat is usually finished.
This is the version we make: a skillet of real stone-ground cornbread, a slow pan of celery and onion, and a good handful of fresh sage. Anything With Wings does the garlic-and-herb work underneath all of it — it is the blend we reach for with poultry, and dressing is poultry’s closest relative on the table.
One honest warning before you start. It should look far too wet going into the baking dish. That is the whole secret, and the note about it below is the one worth reading twice.
Southern Cornbread Dressing with Anything With Wings
Southern cornbread dressing baked in its own dish, never in the bird. Skillet cornbread, a slow pan of celery and onion, fresh sage and organic poultry seasoning. Serves ten to twelve.
Ingredients
For the cornbread (best baked a day ahead)
- 2 cups stone-ground yellow cornmeal
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon Anything With Wings seasoning
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups buttermilk
- ¼ cup bacon fat or unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the skillet
For the dressing
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for the dish
- 2 large yellow onions, diced small (about 3 cups)
- 6 ribs celery, diced small (about 3 cups), leaves saved
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons Anything With Wings seasoning, divided
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage (about 20 leaves)
- 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
- 3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
- 4 slices day-old white sandwich bread, torn (or 2 cups torn day-old biscuits)
- 4 to 5 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- Freshly cracked black pepper
On the table
- Cranberry sauce
- Pan gravy
- Toasted pecans, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Bake the cornbread. Heat the oven to 425°F and put a 10-inch cast iron skillet in it with a tablespoon of bacon fat or butter. Whisk the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and 1 teaspoon of the seasoning in one bowl; whisk the eggs, buttermilk and melted fat in another. Combine them with about fifteen strokes and stop — lumps are fine, a smooth batter is overmixed. Pour into the hot skillet, which should hiss, and bake 22 to 25 minutes until the top is set and the edges pull away.
- Dry it out. Turn the cornbread out, let it cool enough to handle, and crumble it in rough pieces onto a large sheet pan. Leave it uncovered on the counter overnight if you can. If you cannot, spread it out and dry it in a 250°F oven for 25 minutes. Dry cornbread drinks the broth; fresh cornbread turns to paste. This is the step people skip and then wonder what went wrong.
- Dry the torn bread the same way, on the same pan. Day-old sandwich bread or leftover biscuits both work, and the mix of the two textures is better than either alone.
- Sweat the vegetables, slowly. Melt the 6 tablespoons of butter in a wide skillet over medium-low heat and add the onion and celery with a pinch of the seasoning. Cook 12 to 15 minutes, stirring now and then, until everything is soft and translucent and the onion has gone sweet. Do not brown it. This is the single longest step and the single biggest difference between good dressing and ordinary dressing — raw celery in the pan means crunchy celery on the plate.
- Add the garlic, 1 tablespoon of the seasoning, the sage and the thyme. Cook one more minute, until the kitchen smells like Thanksgiving, then take the pan off the heat. The seasoning goes into the hot butter rather than onto the dry cornbread so the garlic and herbs bloom in the fat and carry through the whole dish.
- Put the crumbled cornbread and the torn bread in the biggest bowl you own — bigger than you think. Scrape every bit of the vegetables and butter over the top, add the parsley, the celery leaves and the remaining seasoning, and fold it together gently with your hands. You want the pieces coated, not mashed.
- Now the broth, and this is the judgment call. Pour in 4 cups and fold. It should look wet, loose and a little alarming — closer to a thick porridge than to a casserole. If the cornbread is still drinking it up and the bowl looks dry at the bottom, add the fifth cup. Dressing firms up considerably in the oven and the usual mistake is being timid here.
- Let it sit five minutes, then taste it. This is the only moment to correct the seasoning, because the broth and the cornbread have both brought salt of their own. Add cracked black pepper now and more of the blend only if it needs it.
- Stir in the beaten eggs last, when the mixture is no longer hot enough to cook them. The eggs are what set the middle into something you can cut rather than spoon. Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish, scrape everything in, level the top without packing it down, and dot the surface with a little more butter.
- Bake at 350°F, covered with foil, for 25 minutes. Pull the foil off and give it another 15 to 20 minutes, until the top is browned and crisp in patches and the centre is set when you press it. Let it rest 10 minutes before it goes to the table, or it will not slice.
Why there is no salt in the ingredient list. Anything With Wings is built on sea salt, the broth brings its own even when it is low-sodium, and the cornbread carries a little as well. Season at step five, taste at step eight after the broth, and add more only then. A pan that tastes right before it bakes will taste over-salted after.
Too wet is correct. Say it again, because nobody believes it the first time. The bowl should look like a loose, soupy porridge going into the dish. Cornbread keeps absorbing in the oven, the eggs set, and the whole thing tightens up. Dressing that looks right in the bowl comes out dry on the plate.
What is in season right now. Celery and yellow onions are both out of the fall harvest and keep all winter, and sage holds outside in the Carolinas well past the first frost — it is the one herb worth walking out to cut in November. If you want a local touch, this is also the end of the North Carolina pecan harvest. A cup of pecans, toasted in a dry skillet and chopped, folded in at step six adds a sweetness and a crunch that cornbread and sage have been getting along with in this state for a very long time.
Make it ahead, because the day is crowded enough. Bake the cornbread up to three days early and keep the crumbles loosely covered on the counter. Build the whole dressing through step nine the day before, cover it and refrigerate it unbaked, then take it out an hour before it goes in the oven and add 15 minutes to the covered bake. It also freezes well unbaked for a month; thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.
The three versions people grew up with. Giblet: simmer the turkey neck and giblets in the broth for an hour, chop the meat fine and fold it in at step six. Sausage: brown a pound of bulk breakfast sausage first and build the vegetables in its fat, cutting the butter to 3 tablespoons. Oyster: fold in a pint of drained oysters at step nine, add some of their liquor to the broth, and serve it the same hour it comes out.
Feeding more, and leftovers. This recipe fills a 9 x 13 and serves ten to twelve alongside everything else on the table. Doubling it means two dishes rather than one deep one, because depth is what keeps the middle from setting. Leftovers reheat best in a 350°F oven with a splash of broth over the top and foil on for the first ten minutes; the microwave turns the crisp top soft.
On the label. Anything With Wings is USDA Certified Organic, gluten free and kosher, with no MSG, no fillers and no anti-caking agents — sea salt, organic garlic, coriander, onion, black pepper, cumin, basil, cayenne, oregano and ginger. It comes in a 5 oz resealable pouch, which is what we recommend over the jar: a pouch is easier to scoop a tablespoon out of and easier to store. The cornmeal, the flour and the bread in this dish are not ours and are not gluten free, so read those labels yourself if gluten matters at your table.
More to cook from here. This is the side that holds the rest of the plate together. Anything With Wings Thanksgiving Turkey uses the same blend and makes the broth you want in this dressing. Around it: The OG Mashed Potatoes, Southern Collard Greens, Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Candied Yams Sweet Potatoes and the Delightful Cranberry Sauce that belongs on top of a spoonful of this. For the same blend on an ordinary week, there is Chicken and Dumplings.