Southern Cornbread Dressing Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep cornbread dressing from being gummy? ›

If your dressing doesn't turn out right, don't fret. You can usually fix it. If you find your stuffing is too dry, add additional warmed broth to it, stir well, and return to the oven, checking periodically. If the stuffing is overly wet and too gummy, cook it uncovered for a bit longer, checking periodically.

She notes that Northern cornbread is sweeter, lighter, and more cake-like than Southern cornbread. Not surprisingly, it includes sugar (or molasses, in the earlier centuries), unlike traditional Southern cornbread.

Add sautéed onion and celery to the crumbled cornbread. Stir in chicken stock, eggs, sage, salt, and pepper until well combined. Pour dressing into the prepared baking dish.

So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish.

You can use either stock or broth for keeping dressing moist or as a basis for gravy, but a strong flavor will give you better results.

Why is my cornbread dressing mushy? If your cornbread dressing is mushy, be sure you baked it in a wide enough pan.

The most common theory is a change in cornmeal itself. Until early in the 20th century, Southern cornmeal was made with sweeter white corn and it was water-ground. When industrial milling came along, that changed. The steel-roller mills used yellow corn that was harvested before it was ripe, so it had less sugar.

Southerners, on the other hand, tend to prefer white cornmeal. Many people believe that it is because, in the old South, families used white cornmeal as it more closely resembled “fancy” European wheat flour. In any case, today it remains a main component in traditional Southern buttermilk cornbread.

Among them was a version of Indian bread made of cornmeal, salt and water called pone or corn pone. The name came from the Algonquin word apan, meaning "baked." The Narragansett word for cornbread, nokechick, became no-cake and then hoe-cake.

Be sure to leave enough time — the cornbread needs to sit out overnight to harden slightly before you make the dressing.

Why put eggs in turkey stuffing? ›

Eggs: Two lightly beaten eggs help hold the dressing together and add moisture. Water: You can add a few tablespoons of water, if you'd like, to achieve your desired consistency. Seasonings: This turkey dressing recipe is seasoned with salt, pepper, rubbed sage, and garlic powder.

Cornbread is as American as apple pie, but its origins date back far beyond the inception of this country. With roots in Mesoamerican, Native American, and African cultures; history and people have shaped this iconic American bread into what it is today.

In a large bowl, whisk together broth, soup, eggs, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper; stir in vegetable mixture. Crumble cornbread into broth mixture and stir until well combined. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake until center is set, 45 to 55 minutes.

The thing that distinguishes Southern cornbread from, say Yankee cornbread, or any other cornbread one is likely to eat outside of the southern states, is that it is savory, not sweet, and it is made mostly with cornmeal.

But for the Thanksgiving side dish in the South, the term dressing was adopted in place of stuffing, which was viewed as a crude term, during the Victorian era. Although dressing and stuffing are interchangeable terms, the signature ingredient of this Thanksgiving side dish in the South is cornbread.

Not completely drying out the bread.

While you can use almost any bread — cornbread, bagels, or even frozen waffles — to make stuffing, it needs to be dried or “staled” first. Any attempts to make stuffing with soft, fresh baked bread will result in a bread soup with a soggy texture.

The stuffing should be moist but not wet. If there is a puddle of broth at the bottom of the bowl, you've added too much. Add more bread to soak up the excess moisture.

A great make-ahead recipe: You can make this Thanksgiving side dish up to a day in advance, and keep it in the fridge until you're ready to bake it. The leftovers are good for up to 4 days so you can enjoy leftover cornbread dressing with your turkey leftovers the next day.