fabulous sausage stuffing

This is a recipe stuffing your turkey and baking the rest in a pan. Combining the two together after cooking creates a fabulous multi-texture stuffing with the crunchy stuff from the pan and the mushy stuff baked inside the bird. I’ve made this for 15 years and everyone loves it. This recipe is for under 6 people, so for more than that, double or triple the recipe. (but I don’t usually use more than the 1 stick of butter)

• 1 pound ground sausage (I usually buy the sage flavored in the tube)
• 1 med-large onion, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped (I use the hearts with the leafy tops included)
• 1 stick butter
• I use fresh sage from our herb garden—lots of it! Alternately, you can use 2 tablespoons poultry seasoning, sage or savory, so if you don’t have fresh, choose one of these or use a combo. The stuffing is better, I think with fresh leaves torn up.
• A little bit of pepper.
• 8 cups of day old soft bread cubes or 1 bag of dried bread cubes. Try fabulous homemade bread to make your bread cubes for stuffing
• ½ cup chicken broth or water
• more liquid for your pan stuffing

Brown the sausage. Sauté the onion and celery together in the butter until tender. In large bowl, combine bread cubes and spices and mix well. I usually do this with my hands because a spoon just doesn’t mix it very well. Then add ½ cup chicken broth or water. Stuff the turkey just before baking, and don’t mix the stuffing until ready to stuff. You can have the dry all ready and the wet all ready, but don’t combine them until the very end.

After stuffing the turkey, add more liquid to your remaining mixture to wet the bread, but don’t saturate it. The amount of liquid added will vary depending on what kind of bread or bread cubes you are using. (the drier your cubes, the more liquid you’ll need) If your stuffing is too dry, then it will be really dry and crunchy and not turn out very good. You can always check on it while baking to see if you need to add more liquid to it. Bake covered for about an hour (give or take) at whatever temp the oven happens to be at for your other things. Stuffing isn’t an exact science. There are lots of variables. When your bird is all done, remove the stuffing and add it to your stuffing in the pan. You can squirt a little bit of the turkey juices for added flavor and moisture. Yummy. Enjoy.