Thanksgiving meals traditionally include stuffing as a side dish.
Serving stuffing, also known as dressing, on Thanksgiving is as traditional as roasting turkey and baking pumpkin pie. Recipes are passed down through generations, clipped from newspapers or made up on the spot and are cooked in the cavity of the bird or in a separate dish alongside the turkey.
Bread Stuffings
The oldest and most economical kinds of stuffing have bread or cornbread bases. Recipes with regular bread normally suggest it be stale or toasted to resist sogginess and are conventionally flavored with sage, onions, butter and celery. Southern style cornbread stuffing is mildly seasoned with bell pepper and onion. For Southwestern cornbread stuffing, add green chilies, jalapeno peppers, corn and shredded Monterey Jack to the ingredients.
Rice-based Stuffings
For a light, aromatic stuffing, mix cooked wild rice with regular white rice, add carrots, celery, onions and mushrooms, and season with fresh thyme and parsley. If you want to make Thanksgiving stuffing low-fat and high-fiber, combine cooked brown rice with carrots, fennel, celery, onion, thyme and dried cranberries.
Vegetable Stuffings
Mushroom fans season a lb. of mushrooms with bacon bits, celery and onions to create a rich turkey stuffing. Chopped butternut squash flavored with fresh sage makes a light, slightly sweet poultry dressing. Roasted fresh chestnuts mixed with spinach is a good stuffing to bake separately so the spinach is not over moistened by the natural turkey juices.
Fruit Based Stuffings
A healthy, crunchy sweet and savory stuffing combines apples with pecans, walnuts and toasted sesame seeds. If you want a very fruity turkey stuffing, mix raisins, pears, tart cherries, pears and apple chunks and season with thyme, sage and parsley. A tasty pear-based stuffing comes together quickly by mixing a packaged mix with Bartlett pears, scallions, celery and parsley.
Unique Turkey Stuffings
Make Thanksgiving memorable by stuffing the turkey Pennsylvania Dutch style using a mixture of apples, sauerkraut and caraway seeds. For an unusual bacon laden dressing, mix a lb. of crisply cooked bacon with Swiss chard, parsnips, celery and herb-seasoned stuffing mix. Add a healthy touch to the Thanksgiving meal with stuffing comprised of wheat berries, rice, carrots, red onions and celery sweetly seasoned with orange peel, allspice, dried apricots and pitted prunes. An upscale twist on old-fashioned oyster dressing adds white wine, flat-leaf parsley and bacon to the recipe. Cooked Italian sausage combined with dried cherries, onions, celery and cubed French bread creates a sweet and spicy turkey dressing.
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