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No need for a box, this classic Homemade Stuffing recipe is so easy to make! Made with dried cubes of bread tossed with sauteed celery and onions, fresh herbs, and broth, then baked until it’s moist and fluffy on the inside and crunchy on top – This Homemade Stuffing recipe is so simple and so good!
For more delicious Thanksgiving side dishes to serve with your Thanksgiving stuffing this holiday season, check out these recipes for the best Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes, Homemade Cranberry Sauce, Sour Cream Cornbread, Candied Carrots, and Sweet Potato Casserole.
Why We Love This Recipe
This classic stuffing recipe is:
- Easy to make – Saute the veggies, then mix together with the dried bread and broth and bake.
- Full of simple ingredients – It doesn’t get easier than vegetables and bread, does it? The fresh herbs can easily be swapped for dried herbs, just use half the amount.
- Easily be made ahead of time – Prepare and bake up to a day in advance then reheat when you’re ready to serve. Free up your oven for that yummy turkey!
recipe walkthrough
Homemade Stuffing Ingredients
Stuffing is surprisingly easy to make with fresh ingredients and doesn’t even require that many steps.
- Fresh herbs – Parsley, fresh thyme, and sage. These are great for garnishing, too. Feel free to add other herbs and spices you love, like fresh rosemary or poultry seasoning.
- Stale bread cubes – fresh will work, but day-old bread is best. I’ve got tips for how to dry it out a little later in this post.
- Veggies – Diced onion, Diced celery, Minced garlic.
- Butter
- Salt and pepper
- Chicken broth – Choose a low-sodium variety. This helps to flavor the stuffing. You could also use turkey broth or stock if you’re serving the stuffing with your Thanksgiving Turkey.
- An egg – Helps to hold the stuffing together.
How To Make Homemade Stuffing
It’s really easy to make your own stuffing from scratch, with just a few steps. You can use the recommended fresh herbs or you could replace them with a couple of teaspoons of poultry seasoning. I definitely recommend fresh though if you can.
Prepare the bread. The day before you plan to prepare your stuffing, cut up a loaf of french bread into bite-sized cubes. Lay the bread cubes out in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet overnight so they can dry out. In a pinch, you can use fresh bread but it can end up a little on the mushy side.
Cook the veggies. Melt some butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add diced onions and celery and saute them until they are soft and the onions are translucent. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute or so. Do this just at the end, as adding the garlic too soon can cause it to burn.
Mix everything together. Stir the vegetables, fresh sage and thyme together with the stale bread in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together an egg and some chicken broth, then pour some of it over the bread. Stir until the bread is moist but not mushy and add more of the broth until you’re happy with the moisture of the bread.
Bake. Pour the bread mixture into a large baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for about 40 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes. If you want the top to be a little more golden and crispy, flip on the broiler for the last five minutes or so.
How to Dry Bread in the Oven
If you need to dry your bread cubes fast, use this trick – Place the bread cubes on a baking sheet in a single layer and place the sheet into the oven at 300℉ for about 10 minutes. Be careful not let them brown. Using this method you may not need as much broth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes and no. Letting the bread sit out overnight is helpful for adding flavor and texture to your stuffing. It helps control the moisture so you aren’t left with mushy or soggy pieces of bread in the center. However, it isn’t going to ruin your stuffing if you forego this step.
You can, but I don’t recommend it. If you want to stuff your turkey, make sure the stuffing is completely cooled to room temperature or chilled so that the bird won’t sit at an unsafe temperature for too long.
Remember that the stuffing needs to be cooked to 165℉ because it absorbs the drippings from the turkey. For this reason, I prefer to cook stuffing in a casserole dish because getting the stuffing to a safe temperature can actually result in overcooking your turkey.
The type of bread you use is really a matter of taste. Most often I use a one-pound loaf of french bread, but I’ve also used a large sheepherder’s loaf, or a loaf of sourdough bread. To save on time, you could even use a box of stuffing mix from the grocery store; just discard the seasoning packet.
The egg helps to act as a binder and holds the stuffing together, creating more of a sturdy casserole that just a jumble of bread crumbles.
Stuffing should be just moist enough, but not soupy or overly wet. If there is liquid at the bottom of the pan, you’ll want to add more bread to sop that up. Conversely, if the stuffing seems too dry, add more liquid until all of the bread pieces are moist.
Serving Suggestions
Stuffing is a bit underrated in the side dish category if you ask me. We tend to only have stuffing around the holidays, but it’s a great way to switch things up from boring potatoes or rice. Serve it with:
Don’t forget the turkey!
Get the best roast turkey recipe, plus TONS of tips!
Storage Tips
Make Ahead, Storage, and Freezing
Who doesn’t love turkey dinner leftovers? I love to pile turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce all in a bowl and enjoy it for lunch the next day! But if you end up with a lot of leftovers, it can be difficult to finish them all. What’s great about this traditional stuffing recipe is that it freezes beautifully.
Make-Ahead Stuffing: Prepare the recipe as directed, then cover tightly and refrigerate up to 2 days in advance. Remove from the fridge and sit out for 30 minutes before baking.
Refrigerating: Cool completely then store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3-4 days.
Freezing: Store in an airtight, freezer-safe container for up to 3-4 months.
Reheating: To reheat large portions, bake at 350℉ for 15-20 minutes. Or microwave until heated through. Add a little broth to keep it from drying out.
You can also use the leftovers to make my Turkey and Stuffing Casserole!
101+ Thanksgiving
Side Dishes
Find all the sides you could possibly want for the perfect Thanksgiving menu!
More Essential Thanksgiving Side Dishes
We all know that stuffing is basically a requirement on your Thanksgiving table. It’s a necessary side dish whether you’re making a whole turkey for a crowd or a small Roast Turkey Breast for a few people! Here are a few more of our favorite Thanksgiving sides:
Homemade Stuffing Recipe
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup Diced onion
- 3 Celery stalks diced (1/2-¾ cup)
- 2 Garlic cloves minced
- 2/3 cup Butter
- ¼ teaspoon Black pepper
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 12 cups Stale bread cubes 1-inch cubes from 1 large loaf french bread
- 3-4 cups Chicken broth
- 1 Egg beaten
- ¼ cup Fresh parsley minced
- 3 teaspoons Fresh thyme leaves minced
- 3 teaspoons Fresh sage minced
Instructions
- Arrange the bread cubes on a cookie sheet and let them sit out on the counter overnight to dehydrate them.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Add bread cubes to a large bowl and set aside.
- Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat and saute onions and celery until soft and translucent; about 5-6 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook for an additional minute.
- Add vegetables and fresh herbs to the bowl with the bread and stir.
- Whisk egg together with chicken broth, then pour over bread until it’s moist but not soggy. You may not need all of the broth. Season with salt and pepper.
- Pour bread mixture into a 13×9-inch buttered baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. Watch closely once uncovered so the top doesn’t burn.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer Kristin Maxwell of “Yellow Bliss Road” is not a dietician or nutritionist, and any nutritional information shared is an estimate. For accurate calorie counts and other nutritional values, we recommend running the ingredients through your preferred online nutritional calculator. Calories and other nutritional values can vary depending on which brands were used.
If I half the recipe, do I halve the cooking time?
It may cook a little quicker, but you wouldn’t halve the time.
What temp do you preheat the oven to?!
Hi Ashley, All of the information you need is in the recipe card, including oven temperature.
I worry about bugs in regards to leaving the bread out, uncovered, overnight. Could I bake it at a low temperature to dry it out?
Hi Courtney, Place the pan in your unheated oven overnight instead of leaving it out on the counter. You just want it to be a little stale; baking would dry it out. It would also be ok to use fresh bread.
This was my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner this year, and it was a hit! A very light but flavorful stuffing; moist but not mushy; aromatic but not stifling.
It only took about 2 cups of broth to fully saturate my bread, but the loaf I had was less than 12 cups in volume, which probably explains it. Fortunately, the recipe cautions to add the broth gradually, so I was spared the mistake of adding all 3 cups of broth at once.
Awesome feedback Spencer! So glad everyone liked it. Thanks for stopping by.
I’m not sure if the directions are written out wrong…but mine turn into a mushy mess and I feel like I needed double the bread maybe to fit the pan. At the top is says 30 mins. But once you get to the actual recipe it’s an hour. Tried cooking longer but way too wet and I only used half of the broth.
Hi Felicia, I’m so sorry it didn’t turn out for you. There seems to have been a glitch in the calculations at the top but the written instructions were correct.