Easy Stuffing Recipe

This Easy Stuffing is crisp and golden on top, soft and buttery underneath, and it smells like the holiday from the second the celery hits the pan. Bread, onion, celery, herbs. Nothing clever, and I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

This is the plain one, and I love it the most.

Bread, butter, onion, celery, and a very generous hand with the sage. That’s it. No sausage, no cranberries, no chestnuts, no apples, none of the things people add when they’re trying to make stuffing more interesting. Stuffing is already interesting.

Here’s what gets me every single year. Butter, celery and herbs go into a hot pan, and about 90 seconds later the whole house knows exactly what day it is. It’s my favorite smell of the year and I’m counting the pies.

Then it bakes covered so the middle stays soft, and uncovered at the end so the top goes properly crisp. I take a corner piece every time and I’m not sorry about it.

• Day old bread (1 loaf, about 1 pound): White, wheat or sourdough, and honestly whatever’s going stale on your counter. Regardless of the bread you pick, it’s important that it’s a day old. Dry bread drinks the broth up and keeps its shape, while fresh bread collapses into paste and breaks your heart.
• Celery (1 cup, chopped) and onion (1 cup, chopped): Equal amounts of each, and together they’re the soul of the whole dish. Don’t skimp on the celery even if it’s not your favorite vegetable in other situations. It’s different here, trust me.
• Unsalted butter (½ cup): Half a cup. Yes, really. This is a holiday side dish and not a salad, and it’s where all the flavor starts.
• Poultry seasoning (2 teaspoons): A dried herb blend, and despite the name there’s no poultry in it anywhere. Sage and thyme do most of the talking, with marjoram and rosemary behind them. I make my own and there’s a Homemade Poultry Seasoning blend here if you’d like to. Out of it entirely? Use 1 teaspoon of dried sage plus ½ teaspoon each of dried thyme and marjoram.
• Dried sage (1 teaspoon) and dried thyme (1 teaspoon): On top of the poultry seasoning, which already has both in it. I know. Sage is the flavor people mean when they say something tastes like Thanksgiving, and I’d rather have too much of it than not enough.
• Salt (½ teaspoon) and black pepper (¼ teaspoon): Modest, because the broth and the herb blend bring plenty of their own.
• Chicken broth (2 cups, low sodium): Or vegetable broth, and that single swap makes the whole thing vegetarian. Low sodium either way so you stay in charge of the salt.
• Fresh parsley (¼ cup, chopped): Folded in at the very end so it stays green and bright against all those dried herbs.
• Eggs (2 large, beaten): They hold everything together so you can lift out a proper square instead of spooning up rubble. Leave them out if you’d rather, and I’ll explain what changes.

Dry bread. I’m going to be firm about this one.

• The easy way: cube the bread, spread it on a baking sheet, and leave it uncovered on the counter overnight. That’s all “day old” means, and it costs you nothing except remembering.
• The fast way: 10 to 15 minutes at 350°F until the cubes are dry and crisp, then let them cool completely before they meet anything wet.
• How to know it’s ready: squeeze a cube. Dry all the way through with no give in the middle. Crisp on the outside and soft in the center means 5 more minutes.

And here’s why I’m making such a fuss. Dry bread soaks the broth up and keeps its edges. Fresh bread turns to paste the second liquid hits it, and once that’s happened there is no rescuing it. I have tried.

The cubes keep beautifully in a paper bag on the counter for 2 or 3 days, so this is the job to do on Tuesday while you’re not busy.

Get set up: Oven to 350°F, and grease a 9×13 inch baking dish.

Dry the bread if you need to: Cubes on a baking sheet, 10 to 15 minutes, until dry and crisp. Let them cool.

Soften the celery and onion: Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat, then in go the celery and onion for 5 to 7 minutes. You want them soft and see through, not browned. This is a gentle step and there’s no rushing it.

Add the herbs: Poultry seasoning, sage, thyme, salt and pepper into the pan, and cook for another minute or 2. The dried herbs hit the hot butter and the smell comes up at you all at once, and anybody wandering past the kitchen will stop. Stand there and enjoy it for a second. You’ve earned it.

Combine everything: Bread cubes into a big mixing bowl, buttery vegetables on top, and toss until every cube is coated.

Broth and eggs: Pour the broth over gradually while you stir gently, so it soaks in evenly rather than pooling in one corner. Fold in the parsley and the beaten eggs.
Be gentle. The bread is dry and fragile and your job is to coat it, not beat it into submission.

Bake it twice, basically: Into the dish, spread it out, foil on, 30 minutes. Then the foil comes off for another 15 to 20 until the top is deep golden and crisp.

The foil is important. With it on, the steam stays in and the middle turns soft and almost custardy. With it off at the end, the surface dries out and browns. Skip it altogether and you’ll get a crunchy lid over a dry middle, which is a sad thing to serve.

I do, and here’s exactly what changes either way.

• With eggs, everything binds as it bakes. You can cut a clean square and lift it onto a plate in one piece, and the texture goes soft and almost like a savory bread pudding underneath that crisp top. Two eggs for a 9×13 pan does it.
• Without eggs, it stays loose and crumbly, closer to a tray of seasoned croutons that have gone soft and buttery. You spoon it rather than slice it.

Neither one is wrong, and this is almost entirely about what you grew up eating. If your grandmother’s stuffing came out of the pan in a pile, hers had no eggs in it, and that pile is what tastes good to you. Follow that.

To leave them out, just leave them out. Nothing else in the recipe changes at all.

One swap and you’re done: vegetable broth instead of chicken broth. Everything else stays exactly where it is.

The poultry seasoning is fine despite its name, since it’s herbs and nothing but herbs. No chicken has ever been near the jar.

• Read your broth label if you’re cooking for somebody strict, because a few vegetable broths quietly include chicken fat or other things that aren’t vegetarian at all.
• To go fully vegan, use a plant based butter or olive oil, and skip the eggs. You lose a little richness and the texture comes out looser, but the top still browns up properly and it’s still very good.

Yes, a full day ahead, and I would.

Put the whole thing together, spread it in the baking dish, cover it and leave it in the fridge overnight. Next day, add 5 to 10 minutes to the covered baking time because it’s starting cold.

Or just dry the bread early, 2 or 3 days ahead, and keep the cubes in a paper bag. That alone takes the longest job off Thanksgiving morning, and Thanksgiving morning needs all the help it can get.

I wouldn’t go more than a day on the fully assembled version. The bread keeps softening the entire time it sits in that broth, and by day 2 you’ve undone all the drying you were so careful about.

Leftover stuffing is great for a lot of things, and I make extra on purpose.

• Stuffing balls. Roll cold stuffing into golf ball sized rounds, onto a lined baking sheet, 20 minutes at 400°F until they’re crisp all over. They hold together because the stuffing has firmed up in the fridge. Dip them in leftover gravy and tell me that isn’t a better lunch than a sandwich.
• Stuffing muffins. Press the cold stuffing into a greased muffin tin and bake at 375°F for about 20 minutes. Every single one comes out with crunchy edges, which solves the ancient injustice of a 9×13 pan having only 4 corners.
• Fried in butter with an egg on top. A thick slab of cold stuffing into a hot buttered skillet, pressed down and left alone until the underside is properly crisp, then flipped. Fried egg over the whole thing. This is the finest breakfast of the entire year and I will not be debating it.
• In a turkey sandwich, with cranberry sauce, where it has always belonged.
• As a casserole, layered with chopped turkey, gravy poured over the top, baked at 350°F until it’s hot through and bubbling round the edges.
• To reheat it plain: foil on, 350°F for about 20 minutes, then uncovered for 5 or 10 to bring the top back. Splash a little broth over first if it looks dry. For one portion the skillet beats the microwave every time and it isn’t close.

How long it keeps: 3 to 4 days in an airtight container in the fridge, or 3 months in the freezer.

Everything. That’s rather the point of stuffing.