Easy & Delicious Sausage Stuffing Recipe (Dressing)

Now in Ireland we would call this stuffing, but I know when it's not technically stuffed in a bird's, then it's not stuffing, it's dressing, and I never heard about dressing until I moved to the U.S., and I was like, dressing is what you put on salad, and that was a whole big thing. Hi Bold Bakers, this week we are making sausage and sage stuffing, just in time for the holidays. This is my mom's classic stuffing, I love this so much. So here I have a nice loaf of bread, I'm gonna cut it up into cubes. Now let me tell you about the bread. I like to use a sourdough, so my easy sourdough recipe, or I like to use my no-knead loaf of bread. Something fermented just has more flavor, it just, I think, soaks it up better, it has a better structure so it doesn't get soggy, I just prefer these kinds of bread. I go to the day-old bread section in my local supermarket, and I buy the old sourdough there, it's only a day or two old, but it's lovely and stale, and you want a stale bread because it actually ends up soaking up the other flavors and the stock and everything so much better, we don't want to use fresh bread when you're making stuffing. Okay, lovely. Now for best results when it comes to making your stuffing, dry out your bread beforehand, so I have the oven on, let's get them in there and drying out. So dry out your bread in an oven at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, 120 degrees Celsius, for roughly 45 minutes to an hour. And just so you know, this step can actually be done days in advance, getting you really nice and ready for the holidays. Now, while our bread is in the oven, we're going to get cooking the rest of our ingredients for our sage and sausage stuffing. So I have a nice, big, heavy-bottom saucepan here, I'm gonna put it on a medium heat, have some olive oil, a little bit of butter, because why not, it's the holidays, and fat just makes everything better. Now the trick when cooking off ground meat is break it up before it gets too brown, if it gets too brown, you can't break it up anymore, you end up with lumps. So just, while it's warm, but not browning, go in there with your masher, and break it up. We just want to cook this pork until there's no more pink left. Just a little tip about when cooking meat in general, make sure your pot is nice and hot before it goes in there, otherwise it'll stew and all the liquid will come out, and it will just be a bit of a mess. So a nice, hot heat when you're frying this off. Chinay, in with our onions, these are chopped nice and fine, and in we go with our celery, finely chopped. Now all we're going to do is sauté these things together, let the vegetables get nice and soft. So not only is this looking good, but it smells so yummy. Beautiful. Okay, let's talk next steps. Here I have some chicken stock, you can use homemade or store-bought, you can get really good store-bought ones, FYI. Into this I'm going to add in some eggs, the eggs help to bind the stuffing. My mom always puts eggs in her stuffing, some people don't, if you don't, that's grand. And then give that a whisky whisk. Also what I add into the liquid, and this is kind of a trick I learned from Ami, putting your seasoning into the liquid, it dissolves in the liquid, and then you're going to get it everywhere in your stuffing, opposed to maybe sprinkling it over the top of the pot, and then only getting on like, some of the bread. So put it into the liquid, it all dissolves in here, and then it'll get everywhere. Salt and pepper in there. Okay, lovely, I'm going to turn off that pot, and let's bring in our bread! It's nice and toasty, it's not colored but it's dry, this is what we want. Into your pot, to soak up all of those lovely flavors, I know it doesn't really make sense when you think dry bread soaks up liquid better, but for some reason it does. Let's go in with our chopped parsley, fresh parsley is best, and chopped sage. Fresh sage, please, if you can, give it a stir around, and then in with all of our liquid. I have to say, one of my pet peeves, I think, is just a dry stuffing, so I just add a little bit of extra stock in there, to make it extra moist and soft and yummy, and especially when it's not going into the carcass of a bird, you don't have that extra moisture coming from the turkey or the chicken or whatever, a little bit of extra stock. Okay, the fun does not stop here, let's head over to my counter and get it into a dish. Okay, big ol' pot of stuffing. So here I have a dish, make sure you butter your dish, because if you don't, let me tell you, washing up later will be a bit of a nightmare. And then just go ahead and pile your stuffing into your dish. Be careful you don't pack it too densely, because you want the heat to get all the way through. Lovely. Oh my gosh, look at all that stuffing, if it smells this good and it hasn't even been baked yet, oh my gosh, we are in for a treat. Now, like I said, this is a huge recipe, so you can half it if you want and just make one dish. Also, what you can do at this stage is wrap it, keep it in the fridge overnight, and then bake it off the next day on Thanksgiving so you have this ready. Also, super Jemma tip, I make this, I don't bake it, and I freeze it, then I take it out to frost it, and then bake it. It freezes really well, so just another way you can get yourself ready for the holidays. This is ready to go, I'm going to cover it in a little bit of tinfoil, okay, no more hanging around, let's get it into the oven. Bake your stuffing off at 350°F, 180°C, covered for 40 minutes, then take off the tinfoil and then bake it for another 15-20 minutes or so, just to get it nice and toasty brown on top. Look at that, a beautiful golden brown, toasty all over. It's a beautiful soft stuffing, but still a little bit crispy on the top. While it's still nice and really hot, dig in. You can tell just by looking at it why this is my favorite side dish of the holiday season. This is just a big ol' dish of comfort food. It has pork, bread soaked in stock, and salt, and onions, and just all such yummy flavors. It's exactly what you want on the side of your Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner. Now that you're already here, stick around and check out lots more of my holiday videos, and I'll see you back here next week with a new one.