How to make southern style dressing?

Most stuffing recipes no matter what the region, contain celery, onion, salt and pepper, broth, and egg. From there there's a lot of variation among people's different national heritage and regions of the country...most significant is the kind of bread used, but also the big flavor components.

The key ingredients for that Southern style flavor are sage and cornbread (the unsweet yellow kind, not Jiffy mixes). You won't see yeast bread, nuts, apples, cranberries, raisins, and such in Southern dressing.

Other ingredients vary by preparer: peppers, sausage, bacon, turkey innards, mushrooms, I have even seen boiled egg in it, and of course various spices. These all can be found in Southern dressing but they are not a signature of that flavor.

My mom used to buy a new wastebasket every year for use as a giant mixing bowl for the dressing. After use, it ended up in the kitchen but you could use in the garage, or as a diaper pail, or a hamper or a toy sorter. You need something huge to mix dressing if you are serving a lot of people.

What you do is prepare the cornbread and then crumble it up.

Chop and pre-cook meats, leaving the grease in the pan.

Chop and pre-cook vegetables, using the grease in the pan.

Dump it all together, including the grease.

Add eggs and broth to moisten and bind the ingredients. Combine thoroughly. The texture and consistency should be firmer than pudding but not as firm as raw meatloaf.

Transfer dressing to roasting or baking pans in layers between 3-4 inches thick per pan. If it is spread thinner, it will be crustier and could burn. If it is any thicker, it will be wetter and may not get done in the middle. Adjust for taste but pay attention to safety.

I always cook my grandmas cornbread stuffing. I put water in a pot then add butter, garlic salt and I always use the innerts of the turkey and I cook that with the water. I dice up celery and onion and set that aside. I make sure cornbread is crumbled well. When the innerts are done this takes about 20 minutes on med. heat set aside till cool enough to work with. I dice the liver and gizzard up and add to my cornbread. At this point I add sage to taste, salt and pepper and my celery and onion. I do not cook my celery and onion because it will cook in the stuffing. I use the water that I cooked the innerts into all my other ingredients until moist. I usually cook this at any time. I add it to my turkey when it is about half way done. That's how I make it here in Tennessee. P.S add more garlic to taste if you like garlic. Do not use biscuits. If you do not have enough water to moisten your stuffing finish using chicken broth.

For southern dressing you have to have the sausage saute sausage with onions and celery and butter add to the crumbled cornbread and add chicken broth to moisten and cook in a 350 oven for 40 min or until you have a crunchy top

I use this recipe - it's great!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Grandmas-Corn-Bread-D...

sage