Revisiting my Classic Sage and Sausage Stuffing from The Food Lab

"What are your thoughts on stuffing?," I asked my friend in a text message the other day.

"I live for the solid blob of sticky bready buttery stuff," she said.

This is the correct answer.

When it comes to the holiday table, stuffing is hands-down my favorite part. How could you not enjoy the equivalent of a half loaf of bread soaked in a half stick butter, flavored with sage, sausage, and stock, all compressed into a forkable bite?

(And that's just the part that's in the casserole dish. The rest is all gravy.)

The recipe for stuffing I'm discussing today originally appeared in my book, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science (you can order signed and personlized copies here, or unsigned copies anywhere books are sold). I've strayed little from that original recipe, but I thought I'd revisit my original article from over a dozen years ago and share some of my thoughts since then.

"I notice your stuffing is baked in a casserole dish. What's up?," you might ask. "Shouldn't stuffing be... stuffing something?"

To which I answer: go stuff it. A turkey's just not big enough to hold the amount of stuffing the holiday table needs, so whether you stuff the bird or not, a separate casserole of the stuff is required. As long as you're stuffing stuffing into your mouth, it's all stuffing in my book.

Here's a quick excerpt from the book, which discusses the differences between stuffing vs. dressing.

Stuffing is easily my favorite part of the holiday meal, and as far as I’m concerned, a side dish worth making any time of the year. For those of you oddballs out there who still refer to the stuff as “dressing,” well, I’m not going to come down on either side of the whole nomenclature debate except to say that three reputable sources give three different answers:

• The Oxford English Dictionary says that “stuffing” is stuffed in a bird or joint (roast), while “dress- ing” is a more general term for seasoning that goes with food or sauce.

• The Joy of Cooking contends that they are one and the same, except one is in the bird and one is out.

 • The Food Lover’s Companion says the two terms can be used interchangeably.

With that out of the way, I expect to hear no more on that semantics discussion this holiday season.

Can we move on? Good!

The Key to Flavorful Stuffing:

Whether it's baked in the bird or out, the key to really flavorful stuffing is to remove as much moisture from the bread as possible, and replace it with a flavorful base. In order to do this, the bread doesn't necessarily need to be stale, but it must be dry. 

Here's what I had to say about the difference in my book:

DRYING VERSUS STALING

Drying and staling are not the same thing. Here’s the difference:

• Drying involves the evaporation of moisture from within a piece of bread. The structure of the bread remains more or less the same, though it become less pliable because of the moisture loss. Dry, not stale, bread will be crisp like a cracker and crumble into a fine powder. Bread that has dried out is very hard to refresh.

• Staling is the process by which moisture migrates out of swollen starch granules and into the spaces in the bread. The moisture-deprived starch molecules then recrystallize, forming tough structures within the bread. Stale, not dry, bread will taste leathery and chewy, not crackery or dry. Bread that has staled can be refreshed by heating it, causing the starch granules to reabsorb moisture.

It’s quite possible for bread to stale without drying—just think about what happens to a loaf of preservative- free bread when you place it in the refrigerator overnight. Staling actually occurs much faster at cooler temperatures, which is why your bread will become leathery and chewy by the next morning no matter how tightly it was wrapped.

In order to prevent both staling and drying, it’s best to store bread tightly wrapped on the countertop or in a bread box if you’re going to eat it within a day or two. For long-term storage, wrap your loaves in foil and pop ’em into the freezer. This will freeze the internal water molecules, preventing them from migrating out of the bread and thus stopping it from staling. Reheat frozen bread in a 300°F oven, wrapped in its foil, until warmed through.

So stale bread can still have plenty of moisture in it. Dry bread, on the other hand, has had moisture removed, which allows it to absorb more flavors from your liquid base.

I personally like to use bread that is not too coarsely textured (like an open-crumbed focaccia or sourgough loaf may be), and not too strongly flavored, although any bread will do. In this particular batch I used a hodge-podge of leftover half-loaves, including some Japanese shokupan, some supermarket-style sliced sourdough, and a rustic Italian loaf from Grand Central Bakery.

To dry bread, I remove the crusts, cut it into cubes, and toast it in a low (275°F; 135°C) oven for about 45 minutes, tossing it a couple of times halfway through. By drying the bread like this, you make enough room in the cubes from two regular-sized American sandwich loaves (20oz. or 570g each) to absorb a over a quart (1 liter) of liquid.

To flavor that liquid, I start by cooking bulk sage sausage in butter (this is the stuff we call "breakfast sausage" in the U.S.), then adding minced celery, onions, garlic, and fresh sage (dried sage also works just fine in this context). Equipment-wise, I used to make everything in a large Dutch oven, but today I'm using my braiser, which is a collaboration between my friend and podcast-mate Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen and the cookware company Staub. The pan is fantastic and I use it multiple times a week, but any heavy-bottomed, straight-sided pot will do.

I like to use a pastry cutter like this one in order to break up the sausage in the pan. (The same tool works for foods like ragu bolognese or chili, or any food that begins with breaking up ground meat in a pan.)

Once the aromatics are softened, I add some stock to deglaze, then combine it all with the dried bread, more stock, and some eggs.

Why eggs? In The Food Lab, I discussed how my favorite stuffing resembles a savory bread pudding. So I use a custard-like base with a mix of 1 quart chicken (or turkey) stock and a three eggs. This is still how I like it. However, I recognize that some folks, like my older sister, prefer their stuffing to be less custardy and a little looser. This is an easily achievable goal: just omit the eggs that bind it and give it that texture.

The only slightly tricky part of this recipe is incorporating those eggs. Though it's tempting to just dump them straight into the pot and stir along with everything else, this winds up cooking the eggs and giving you stuffing with distinct swirls of cooked egg whites, like a solid egg drop soup.

Instead, I combine the eggs with half of the stock and beat it with a fork or whisk until they are broken up, then slowly add that to the stuffing mixture while stirring to ensure that no large clumps of eggs end up in the mix.

Making Stuffing Ahead

I like to bake my stuffing directly in the braise I cooked the ingredients in, but if you cooked in a tall dutch oven or a saucepan, you can go ahead and transfer the mix to a buttered casserole dish. Stuffing is really easy to make ahead up to this point. You can store it in the fridge for multiple days then just bake it the day of serving.

That day may be thanksgiving, but I am a firm believe that traditional thanksgiving foods--turkey and stuffing in particular--deserve a spot at the table year-round.

CLASSIC SAGE AND SAUSAGE STUFFING

SERVES 10 TO 12

21⁄2 pounds (about 1.1 kg; 2 loaves) high- quality sandwich bread or soft Italian or French bread, crusts removed, cut into 3⁄4-inch dice (about 5 quarts)

8 tablespoons (115g; 1 stick) unsalted butter

1 1⁄2 pounds (680g) sage or breakfast sausage, removed from casings (if present)

1 large onion, finely chopped (about 2 cups)

4 large stalks celery, finely chopped (about 2 cups)

2 medium cloves garlic, minced or grated on a Microplane (about 2 teaspoons)

1⁄4 cup minced fresh sage (or 2 teaspoons dried sage)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

4 cups homemade or low-sodium canned chicken or turkey stock

3 large eggs

1⁄4 cup minced fresh parsley

1. Adjust the oven racks to the upper and lower-middle positions, then preheat the oven to 275°F. Spread the bread evenly on two rimmed baking sheets, and bake, rotating the pans and stirring the bread cubes several times, until the bread is completely dried, about 50 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Increase the oven temperature to 350°F.

2. Heat the butter in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until it's mostly melted. Add the sausage and mash with a stiff whisk or potato masher to break it up into fine pieces as it cooks (the largest pieces should be no greater than 1⁄4 inch). Keep going until no pink spots remain, about 8 minutes. Add the onion, celery, garlic, and sage and cook, stirring fre- quently, until the vegetables are softened but not browned, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat and add half of the stock.

3. Whisk the remaining stock, the eggs, and 3 tablespoons of the parsley in a medium bowl until homogeneous. Stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, slowly pour the egg mixture into the sausage mixture. Add the bread cubes and fold gently until evenly mixed.

4. Use part of the stuffing to stuff the bird if desired. Transfer the remain- ing stuffing to buttered 9- by 13-inch baking dish (or 10- by 14-inch oval dish). Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the stuffing reads 150°F, about 45 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking until golden brown and crisp on top. Sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of parsley and serve.