Southern Cornbread Dressing

Mains, Sides, Thanksgiving, UncategorizedNovember 18, 2012Comments Off on Southern Cornbread Dressing
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Southern Cornbread Dressing with bacon

Cornbread dressing with chicken & bacon

I love Thanksgiving and one of the dishes I MUST have is dressing.  This one has cornbread, some toasted white bread and lots of onion, celery, sage with chicken pieces and bacon.  It is yummy, yummy, yummy… I started out making my Mom’s dressing and evolved to this.  Y’all know I can’t follow a recipe.

Dressing (call it stuffing if you must, but I know you’re not from around here!) is very easy and extremely versatile. There are so many different variations that come from all the regional areas around the US.  I still can’t imagine eating oyster dressing, but if I was from that area…I know I couldn’t live without it.

Cornbread dressing

Also, JUST cornbread dressing with lots of chicken pieces are a staple of the South and can really be a main meal.  Imagine having that for supper…OMG!!  It’s one of those wonderful tastes of the holidays.  You have to get a little dressing with gravy and a bit of cranberry sauce! wow..really great.

You know the deal, invite all that family over…even if you DO have that weird uncle (don’t we all?)..Remember, here in the South we don’t hide our crazy relatives, we just ask which side of the family they’re on…Ha

Happy thanksgiving y’all! It’s the beginning of this amazingly glorious Holiday Season….and don’t forget the flip flops…  It’s almost time to decorate for Christmas!!!!!

Southern Cornbread Dressing

  • Prep time:
  • Cook time:
  • Total time:
  • Yield: 8-10
  • Difficulty: easy

Ingredients:

  • 2-3 pkgs cornbread mix or prepared
  • 2-3 cups white bread cubes
  • 1 pkg good bacon
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 3 cups celery with leaves, chopped
  • 2-3 Tbs rubbed sage
  • 2 Tbs poultry seasoning
  • small pkg chicken parts for broth/ 2 cartons chicken stock

Directions:

  1. I always start several of my dishes the night before thanksgiving and especially my dressing.  I bake the cornbread and …I buy a little day old bread or rolls, just something white to cut the cornbread…about 2-1 ratio.  When the cornbread is cooled, I cut it and the bread into cubes, crumble some of it and put them back into the oven to toast up a bit.  This can be done a couple of days in advance also.  Oh, and please don’t buy that stuffing mix from the store…it just doesn’t even smell right to me…

  2. The next day, I put a pot on the back of my stove filled with chicken pieces and all those giblets, add lots of water some onion, celery, bay leaf and let this simmer.  This gives me extra chicken broth I always need and then I remove the chicken and add it to my dressing before it bakes.

  3. Making cornbread dressing

  4. Fry all the bacon and remove, then chop it into small pieces, leaving the bacon grease in the skillet.  Add all the chopped onions, celery and bacon back to the skillet and saute for a couple of minutes.  Place all the toasted cornbread and white bread in a large baking dish, add the onion mixture and chicken from the stock-pot in bite-size pieces.  Fold all this together and add the sage, poultry seasoning, some garlic salt and pepper.  Now add a couple of ladles of stock to the dressing to moisten and taste.  You might need a bit more salt of more sage.

  5. Making cornbread dressing

  6. Now…about the stock…I baked two chickens (pat dry, smear with lots of butter, then salt & pepper) on top of my dressing so the moisture came from the chickens.  If you are baking your dressing alone, which I normally do, then you want to add lots of stock to the dressing.  You want it almost wet, most of it will bake away.  Either way works well, it’s just a bit different.  If you are baking the turkey separate, then you’ll have lots of drippings for the dressing and your gravy.

  7. Chicken & dressing

  8. Bake just the dressing in a 9×13-ish pan at 350 for about 45 minutes.  For the chicken and dressing, bake at 375 until the leg bone moves very easily and all juices are clear.

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