Put that “flavored” boxed stuffing mix away this Thanksgiving and serve up this sourdough bread stuffing with sausage and herbs for your holiday meal. You will love it and your efforts for ditching the box for this homemade stuffing recipe will be very much appreciated! This mouthwatering casserole dish is sure to become a new family favorite, packed with the savory flavors of sausage, fragrant herbs, and the tanginess of sourdough bread. Get ready to create a mouthwatering stuffing that will have your family and friends begging for the recipe.
Choosing the Right Sausage for Your Stuffing
I pick my stuffing sausage based on the crowd I’m feeding. My go to for this recipe is flavorful sweet Italian sausage since it’s a safe one for most crowds. If I didn’t have to appeal to the masses for the holiday, I’d use spicy Italian sausage. If you wanted to get really “spicy” chorizo would be spectacular. Sometimes we grind the pork ourselves and make the sausage by seasoning it ourselves and that is even tastier than store-bought Italian seasoned sausage.
Elevating Your Stuffing with Fresh Herbs
This stuffing recipe can be made with all dried herbs, but I will say the wow factor will not be the same at all. Fresh herbs will elevate the overall taste of the stuffing for sure. I like to use fresh parsley, sage and thyme for this recipe and the last herb, fennel seeds I do use dried.
Sourdough bread in stuffing
I personally have never been a fan of store-bought processed white bread. Now, if it’s homemade, it’s a different story. Sourdough bread on the other hand has always gotten my attention. If you happen to have homemade sourdough bread or plan on making it, that’s even better! It’s been my goal to create a classic sausage stuffing with sourdough bread that my whole family would love, now here it is. If you’re like me, you’re all about trying to save time prepping in the kitchen without sacrificing your delicious food, especially on the holidays. I hate cutting a huge loaf of bread into small cubes, so my speedy fix is to buy a pre-sliced loaf of sourdough bread which eliminates a ton of cutting time.
You don’t need to have day old or stale bread for this recipe. You can just dry the bread, cut into cubes in the oven for 15-20 minutes for some perfectly dried bread cubes. We suck out all the moisture out of the bread and then replace it with broth and juicy cooked veggies. Sounds ironic, doesn’t it, but that’s what makes this stuffing spectacular.
Sourdough Bread Stuffing Ingredients
- Sourdough– I like to use pre-sliced for convenience sake, but a regular 16 oz. loaf of homemade or store-bought is great as well. You can support a local bakery by getting it from them too! Homemade is of course best if you have time to make it! I will admit I usually do not have time to make homemade bread before the holidays.
- Butter– I use unsalted butter, 8 tablespoons of butter total for the recipe.
- Onion– sweet onion is great.
- Celery– I personally do not think stuffing is the same without celery, but some people are not fans of celery, raw or cooked. In this case you can use some celery seed in place of it just for that flavor.
- Garlic– garlic cloves preferred, but in a pinch sub with garlic powder
- Sausage– I like sweet Italian sausage for this recipe if I’m serving a crowd, otherwise spicy Italian is great.
- Broth– I prefer vegetable broth here only because I feel it is the most flavorful, but chicken stock or broth are fine as well.
- Water-This is just to add a little more moisture to the stuffing without adding for broth/sodium.
- Eggs– Do not forget the eggs for that classic chewy sticky texture of a classic stuffing recipe. I actually forgot my eggs one time when I was re-testing my recipe before posting this and it was still tasty, but sooo not the same without that stuck together stuffing texture.
- Salt– I like to use sea salt, but kosher salt or similar is fine.
Herbs
You could grab a Poultry Herb Blend from the grocery store and save the rosemary for another dish. They will have Sage & Thyme, but usually not parsley. That you can buy separately.
- Parsley– I highly recommend fresh parsley for this stuffing, for looks and taste.
- Sage– I prefer fresh sage leaves for this recipe. (For dry rubbed sage use 1 tsp for every 1 Tbsp. of fresh sage.)
- Thyme– I like fresh thyme for this
Sourdough Bread Stuffing with Sausage and Herbs
Equipment
Ingredients
- 16 oz. Sourdough bread cut into 1/2-3/4 inch cubes
- 1/2 cup butter divided in half
- 2 cups onion finely diced
- 1 cup celery chopped small
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 1.5 lb bulk Italian Sausage casings removed
- 2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- .5 cup water
- 1 large eggs
- 1/4 cup parsley fresh
- 2 Tbsp. sage fresh (For dry rubbed sage use 1 tsp for every 1 Tbsp. of fresh sage.)
- 2 Tbsp. thyme fresh
- 2 tsp. fennel
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Divide and spread out sourdough bread cubes onto 2 dry baking sheets. Bake for 15-20 mins, turning 2 times. (You want the bread cubes completely dried out and crisp with no moisture)
- While you're drying out the bread, Pre-heat a skillet to Medium-high heat and brown and crumble the sausage for about 6-7 minutes or until fully cooked. Â I like to use a wooden spoon so that I don't miss out on any bits I'm cooking in the skillet for this recipe.
- Once the sausage is done, remove the sausage from the pan and set aside on a plate or bowl.
- Lower the heat to Medium-low, melt 1/4 cup of butter and add the onions and celery (you can decrease the butter if your sausage was already greasy). Â Cook the vegetables for 8-10 minutes or until tender, adding in the salt and pepper at some point now during the cook.
- Then add in the fresh minced or pressed garlic, sage, thyme and fennel and cook for 2 more minutes.
- Add the dried bread cubes to a large mixing bowl, along with the sausage, veggie mixture, broth and water and give it all a good stir till everything is moist.
- Stir in the egg and re-stir until well combined.
- Transfer the stuffing bread mixture into a well greased 13 x 9-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. Flatten the mixture a little with your spoon or spatula and top with remaining 1/4 cup of butter, cut into thin slices over the top of the stuffing.
- Cover baking dish with aluminum foil and bake at 350° F in preheated oven for 25 minutes.
- After 25 minutes, remove the foil and bake another 25 minutes.
- If you want a more crispy top, besides just the crispy edges, you can broil the top for a couple minutes. Â For me, I'm fine with just the initial bake.Â
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