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Southern Cornbread Dressing

Southern Cornbread Dressing is deliciously moist and wonderfully seasoned with sage, onions, and celery. It’s a classic that makes it to the Thanksgiving table year after year.

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Southern Cornbread Dressing

Thanksgiving is quickly approaching and it’s time to start planning that Thanksgiving menu. This year I want the food to be extra good and special since this is the first year my son has been away at college. I miss him dearly and I know he misses my home cooking.

You cook for your boys mamas, and they’ll always want to come home to see you.  🙂

Southern Cornbread Dressing- a must for Thanksgiving

Probably the most looked forward to part of Thanksgiving dinner, besides dessert, is the dressing and it’s not uncommon for us to have more than one kind. I personally really love this Andouille Sausage and Cornbread Stuffing.

This Southern Cornbread Dressing is a more traditional southern dressing made with crumbled cornbread along with lots of onion, celery, and sage. It’s savory, moist, and delicious.

Southern Cornbread Dressing

Since we typically fry our Thanksgiving turkey, I solely use canned broth to make dressing, but if you have turkey drippings, you could add them to the dressing and it will taste even better.

Along with cornbread dressing we love to have Cheesy Green Bean Casserole, mashed potatoes, and Broccoli Casserole for Thanksgiving dinner. And this year I think I’ll add Savory Sweet Potato Casserole to the list. You can never have too many casseroles!

Equipment Needed

  1. Cast Iron Pan– You will need a 9 to 10-inch cast iron pan for baking the cornbread. A 9-inch cake pan or baking dish can be used instead.
  2. Baking Dish– a 9×13-inch baking dish is a good size.
Southern Cornbread Dressing

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Southern Cornbread Dressing

Southern Cornbread Dressing

A traditional southern cornbread dressing flavored with onion, celery, and sage. Super moist and flavorful.
PREP: 30 minutes
COOK: 30 minutes
TOTAL: 1 hour
SERVINGS: 8 servings

Equipment

Ingredients

Cornbread

  • 1 cup self-rising cornmeal, I use Martha White
  • 1/2 cup self-rising flour, I use White Lily
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tablespoons Vegetable oil

Dressing

  • 8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
  • 3 medium onion, chopped
  • 4 stalks celery, chopped
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons dried sage
  • 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 3 pieces toast, crumbled
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 3 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 to 2 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
  • 2 tablespoons butter

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  • In a medium bowl, stir together all ingredients for cornbread. Pour into a lightly greased 9-inch cast iron pan or a 9-inch baking pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Before using, crumble into small pieces.
  • Heat butter over medium heat in a large pan. Add celery and onion and cook until soft.
  • Add sage, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper to onion mixture.
  • In a large bowl combine crumbled cornbread and toast.
  • Whisk together milk and eggs and add to bowl. Stir in 2 cups of chicken broth.
  • Stir in onion mixture. Mixture should be very moist. Add more broth if necessary.
  • Transfer to a greased baking dish. Cut butter into small slivers and scatter on top of dressing.
  • Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until it turns light brown on top.

Notes

Note: The cornbread should be made a day or two in advance.

Nutrition

Calories: 314kcal
Author: Christin Mahrlig
Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Southern

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444 thoughts on “Southern Cornbread Dressing”

  1. This dressing sounds wonderful, and I plan on making it for Thanksgiving this year. Two questions: I do have a baking pan which is 9″x 13″ x 2″. Is that too big, would I need to double the recipe? But I might also like to try making it in a cast iron pan. Sadly, the only cast iron pan sizes available to me are 8-inch or 10-inch. What would you recommend using?

  2. We love cornbread dressing and we LOVED this recipe, yum! Served it with Pork Roast and Butternut Squash.

  3. Love the recipe, but if I don’t have self-rising flour or self-rising cornmeal, how much baking powder do I add and should I add baking soda?

  4. Monica from Bestconsumerratings

    Looks delicious, thanks for sharing the great recipe. I have another delicious dish on my list. Looking forward to creating more delicious dishes, I’ll be back.

  5. I tried this excellent cornbread dressing and it came out great – and sides aren’t even my specialty! My daughter really loved it too and I’m sure she will be asking for it again very soon.

  6. Susan Dubose

    Cooked the dressing for Thanksgiving and it was the best ever and so very moist. Thanks so mush as the family loved this dressing.

  7. Susan Dubose

    Love your recipe the only difference I use biscuits instead of bread…I may try french bread this time.

    1. I also grew up having boiled eggs in dressing. There doesn’t seem to be any recipes including eggs. I’m about as southern as you can get!
      Merry Christmas & God Bless!

      1. Me too!!! From Louisiana!!! we put boiled eggs in ours🥰 I boil my chicken, with chicken bouillon cubes. For my broth!!! We use giblet gravy over our cornbread dressing💞

  8. We made this recipe yesterday. My family really love it. Thank you for sharing your easy to make. I love your blog.

  9. Thank you for this recipe! I just made it for the first time and it is GOOOOD!!!!! Thanks again!

  10. HI Friends…in the process of making, stage of a really big bowl filled with crumby crumbs. : ) Any advice on making the night before and baking the following day? Is this best served warm, fresh from oven or baked before and just reheated? Heck, I think leftovers always taste better. So…baking now does make sense. If you read this TGIVING eve and have advice, I would be grateful, and thankful. : )

    1. Valerie Taylor

      It’s a very moist dressing, so you could possibly make ahead and reheat. It’d probably dry it out a little though. To maximize time and have fresh dressing, I’d mix in the cooked butter onion mixture to the cornbread crumbs. Refrigerate that overnight and the next day just add the wet ingredients to cook.

  11. Your recipe looks a lot like mine, I love cornbread dressing the best.
    Just wanted to remark on how you said in your ABOUT page, you don’t repeat your recipes.
    I’ve perused your recipes, and it looks to me that you have worked on perfecting your dishs.
    Just sayin…..

  12. all sounds good to me. don’t usualy make dressing leave it to others. one dressing or stuffing a long lost friend used to make was great she used 1 dozen eggs beaten, 1 sleeve celery chopped,1 onion chopped,1 sleeve mild sausage, 1 sleeve saltines,1 box ritz crumbled. add your poultry sessoning(apprx. 1tsp.) and sage to taste also at least i stick buttermelted and chicken broth mix all put in baking dish 350 for 30 mins or so she was a great cook and even my grandfather liked this please feel free to tweak to taste. belive it or not the crackers did the trick agreed not cornbread dressing but good

  13. I tripled the recipe and it filled 2 aluminum half steam table pans (each 11.5″ x 9.25″ x 2.5″ deep). I had to adjust the cooking times since I made so much. I cooked the cornbread and the dressing until they were browned on top. Pretty doggone tasty. Next time I plan to double the salt, sage and poultry seasoning for a little more “dressing” flavor. Thanks for the recipe!

    1. Nancy Pumphrey

      Use Albers cornmeal. Follow recipe on box but omit the sugar. It’s perfect every time.

    2. Warren Wyatt

      Use CornKits. It comes in and envelope and has no sugar. Just add egg and milk. I think it’s much better than Jiffy.

        1. Teresa Davis

          May not taste sweet to you but it has added sugar which imo is not necessary. I’ve had the mix and can taste it. Also some people (like my husband) cannot have processed sugar.

    3. Honey, true southern dressing is NEVER sweet. We’re not making a dessert here. Buy self rising cornmeal or better yet find some old country boy to stone grind your cornmeal!

      1. I laughed out loud when I read your reply! And you started it with “Honey” – you must be a true Southerner. Nope southern cornbread is NOT sweet. Boxed cornbread mix? Heavens! Make it from scratch, like a true southerner would. Bless their hearts.

        1. Very much like my family recipe. I loved the “bless their hearts”. My grandmother
          AlWays said that and now with almost grown grandchildren I find myself saying that very same thing!

  14. Linda Sullens

    That’s a lot of eggs for that little pan of dressing. Pretty good bit of onions and celery for the size as well. Just my opinion. But this looks more like my dressing than most recipes I’ve seen and pretty close in what ingredients I use. I don’t have a recipe, but I’m creating one this year. I can tweak it next year if I need to. No more stressing over exactly how much of what I need. I use all cornbread with eggs in the cornbread (about 6 cups I think for 2 pans) but not in the dressing.

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