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.
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. (Note: This post was originally published November 10, 2015. But my son is still coming home for Thanksgiving 😊)
You cook for your boys mamas, and they’ll always want to come home to see you. 🙂
The Thanksgiving side dish that my kids look forward to the most is the dressing.
What Is Dressing?
Dressing is what southerners call stuffing. Typically dressing is made with cornbread. Variations on cornbread dressing are many and varied. Depending on the region of the south, ingredients like pecans, sausage, crawfish, or oysters can be added.
Thanksgiving Dressing Recipe
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.
How Far In Advance To Make The Cornbread
You should make the cornbread a day or two in advance. You want the conrbread to be somewhat dry and stale. This will allow it to absorb more liquid and flavor.
Recipe Tip
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! I also always make these Yeast Rolls and Southern Sweet Potato Pie.
Equipment Needed
- 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.
- Baking Dish– a 9×13-inch baking dish is a good size.
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Watch the video below to see how easy it is to make Southern Cornbread Dressing.
Southern Cornbread Dressing
Equipment
- 9 to 10-inch cast iron pan
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
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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In this Southern cornbread dressing recipe looks delicious! Did you use White cornmeal or yellow cornmeal for this recipe?
Really you can use either one but I always prefer the yellow.
You’re missing out on the best part – pecans and breakfast sausage links
I love this cornbread dressing!
Yum, this looks insanely delicious – I can’t wait to make it!
Was looking for a recipe that had the same ingredients as my mom used (she’s passed away) found this recipe. Tweeked recipe a little,. Used cream of chicken soup, in addition to chicken broth. My used cream if chicken soup. Dressing was great! Tasted just like hers.
It says crumble cornbread in a bowl and toast… am I supposed to toast the cornbread?
You don’t need to put toast in it. It is supposed to be cornbread dressing!
In a large roasting pan, My mom used about 4 slices of toasted white bread and broke it into small pieces. She baked a pan of cornbread and crumbled it up into roaster . She would fry a chopped onion and a few stalks chopped celery in a stick of butter in a skillet until tender and slightly browned and then add to mixture in roaster. She added 3 large raw eggs and [ I think she also added 3 large boiled eggs (peeled & chopped up)] into the mixture. Add sage to taste. (I always taste the raw mixture and keep adding until I get my desired taste). She would boil the giblets to make broth (or use chicken broth) (you can also boil a few chicken thighs if you want to crumble up the chicken and have broth) and add enough broth to mixture to make it moistened, not too juicy, but juicy enough so that it won’t be too dry after it is baked. She would sprinkle salt and pepper to taste. Then she would mix together all this in the roaster, then bake on center rack on 350º until browned on top and done in middle.
Sounds like how my grandmother used to make it but instead of toast she used leftover biscuits.
I add some eggplant to mine and it makes it really nice and moist.
I tried it your way and it turned out terrific!
My Mother made fantastic cornbread dressing. She made New Orleans style, half cornbread & half french bread. But I make mine with all cornbread. When I bake the cornbread of course it does have some GF flour. because my family is sensitive to gluten. Way it goes. But it still tastes great.
I do all my tasting before putting in the raw eggs.
So right
I’m from Alabama and I can say that – although I don’t have a clue why – all recipes for Southern cornbread dressing have always called for crumbled bread or biscuits. It’s been passed down for generations that way. I’m guessing it does something to the consistency.
Adding the bread also serves to help hold it together. It acts almost like a binding ingredient. My Mom always added bread but the cornbread was the main ingredient. Without the “white bread” the dressing did not hold together.
It’s saying crumble the toast as well
Is it okay to use boxed cornbread instwad of making your own? Im on a budget and cant afford to huy ngredients i may not use again.
Of course it’s ok. It may have a little different flavor because cornbread mix typically has sugar in it. Traditional, southern cornbread is not sweet. However, if that is what you are used to eating anyway, it will not matter.
Boxed cornbread is fine and does not need to be toasted. I only toast freshly made cornbread. The amount of sugar in the seasoning is minimal and does not affect the taste.
Sorry I have to disagree with using the boxed cornbread mixture . It does not taste like true southern style cornbread and it makes the dressing taste like you used the box mix. Too sweet too grainy.
Very true, the boxed cornbread makes a very sweet dressing and also grainy as mentioned above. Unless you like it sweet don’t use the box mix.
No… It’s not OK make your own cornbread first… If you don’t, don’t you dare call it southern dressing!
I put milk in the dressing, is there a way to fix it?
I followed this recipe and put milk in the dressing no I’m reading comments that I wasn’t supposed to, is it going to come out horrible?
I always put milk in my dressing, in addition to several eggs,salt and pepper a chicken bouillon cube or two (cooked celery and onion in the broth you get from adding the turkey giblets packet). More dried bread ratio than cornbread. Like 1/3 cornbread to 2/3 White bread. You make it like a custard. It’s moist like wet mashed potatoes consistency before baking. And your dish is moist not dry when baked. Yum!
Joan, do you have a recipe for that?
I am looking for a southern style wet dressing recipe that had Durkee sauce in it but yours sounds pretty close.
Do you cover dish as it’s cooking?
No, do not cover when cooking. The dressing need to cook through and dry some as it does so. You don’t want it DRY, but you also don’t want to swim in it.