This is hands-down my favourite stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I no longer put my stuffing inside the turkey, because I find the turkey breast dries out while the stuffing remains uncooked in the middle. Nowadays, I spatchcock my bird and cook the stuffing in a separate roasting dish.
Ingredients
- 250 g bread (preferably sourdough, preferably stale)
- 1 onion – diced
- 2 large stalks celery – diced
- 400 g pork sausages (removed from their casing, or loose sausage meat)
- 2 apples – roughly diced
- few sprigs sage – leaves chopped
- few sprigs thyme – leaves chopped
- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- 250 ml chicken stock – cooled
- 1 egg
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- neutral oil
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180-200C.
- Cut the bread into rough cubes of about 1.5 cm and put into a large mixing bowl. (You can do this in advance if you want your bread to further dry out.)
- Fry off the diced onion and celery in a frying pan until softened. Add to the mixing bowl and allow to cool.
- Break up the sausage meat and add to the mixing bowl along with the diced apple (I like to keep the apple fairly chunky) and the herbs. Mix everything to combine.
- Then add the wet ingredients – the stock, apple cider vinegar and egg – plus a generous grind of salt and pepper. Get stuck in with your hands at this point, ensuring that everything is well combined and the stock has soaked into the bread.
- Grease a roasting dish with a little oil, then pile the stuffing into the dish – pressing it down into the corners.
- Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes; then remove the foil and bake uncovered for a further 20-25 minutes until cooked. It should be still moist but nicely browned on top.
- Serve with turkey and all the trimmings!
