This is not your typical Southern cornbread dressing recipe (or cornbread stuffing, if you prefer). Yes, it gets plenty of melted butter, diced onions, and chopped celery. Yes, distinct bites of crispy, toasted, golden brown cornbread dot the top, while below the surface lies an almost-but-not-quite-custardy interior laced with sage-rich breakfast sausage. But we gave the classic Thanksgiving side dish a wake-up call courtesy of hot chiles and—the true star—corn nuts. Pulverized into an earthy, sweet magic dust and bloomed in oil, just like you might warm spices, the crunchy snack seriously pumps up the casserole’s corn flavor.
You can absolutely use store-bought cornbread, but homemade cornbread (like our Buttermilk Cornbread recipe, developed specifically for stuffing) will give you more control over the sweetness and texture. If you’re looking for a gluten-free dressing, use a cornbread made with 100% cornmeal, no wheat flour. Meanwhile, you can leave out the sausage if you prefer a vegetarian stuffing.
This dressing recipe soaks up quite a lot of stock (homemade or store-bought turkey or chicken stock are both fine), but it may take a few minutes. If the liquid pools when you pour it in, walk away and give it a few minutes to do its thing while you prep the rest of Thanksgiving dinner.
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What you’ll need
3-Qt. Baking Dish
$17 At Amazon
Sheet Pans
$119 At Bon Appétit Bazaar
Large Skillet
$74 At Amazon
Wooden Spoon
$7 At Amazon
Large Bowl
$18 At Amazon
Medium Bowl
$17 At Amazon
Heavy-Duty Aluminum Foil
$12 At Target
Recipe information
Total Time
2 hours
Yield
8–10 servings
Ingredients
3
1½
1
2
4
3
2
¾
¾
1
2
3
3½
Preparation
Step 1
Preheat oven to 325°. Divide 3 lb. cornbread, cut into small pieces (about ¾"; 14–16 cups) evenly between 2 large rimmed baking sheets and bake, tossing occasionally, until dried out and lightly browned around the edges, 40–50 minutes. Let cool at least 10 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 350°.
Step 2
Meanwhile, cook 1½ lb. breakfast sausage, casings removed if needed, in a large skillet over medium-high heat, stirring and breaking up with a spoon, until lightly browned and cooked through, 6–8 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Step 3
Reduce burner to medium heat and melt 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) in same skillet. Add 2 medium onions, chopped, and 4 celery stalks, chopped; season with kosher salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, 8–10 minutes. Add 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped, and 2 Thai chiles or 1 jalapeño (with seeds), chopped. Cook, stirring once, until very fragrant, about 1 minute. Add ¾ cup corn nuts, finely ground in a food processor, blender, or mortar and pestle (about ½ cup) and cook, stirring often, until very fragrant and vegetables are starting to brown around the edges, about 3 minutes. Add ¾ cup dry white wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost completely evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add 1 Tbsp. finely chopped sage and 2 tsp. finely chopped thyme and toss to combine. Remove from heat.
Step 4
Combine cornbread, sausage, and sautéed vegetable mixture in a large bowl. Whisk 3 large eggs and 3½ cups turkey stock or low-sodium chicken broth in a medium bowl until very well combined. Pour over cornbread mixture and let sit, gently stirring every minute or so, until cornbread has absorbed all or virtually all of the liquid. Season with kosher salt (about 1 Tbsp. Diamond Crystal or 1½ tsp. Morton kosher salt) and freshly ground black pepper.
Step 5
Lightly butter a 3-qt. or 13x9x2" casserole dish. Transfer stuffing to dish and tap dish lightly against counter to distribute and compact stuffing. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and bake until stuffing is very hot throughout and bubbles appear around sides, 40–45 minutes. Increase oven temperature to 425° and remove foil. Continue to bake stuffing until top is lightly browned, 15–20 minutes longer.
Do ahead: Stuffing can be baked at 350° 3 days ahead. Let cool, then chill. Reheat in a 350° oven before increasing temperature to 425° and removing foil.
Editor’s note: This cornbread dressing recipe was first printed in October 2019 as “Cornbread Stuffing With Sausage and Corn Nuts” as part of our Absolutely, Positively Perfect Thanksgiving Menu. Head this way for even more of our favorite dishes for your Thanksgiving table →
How would you rate Cornbread Dressing With Sausage and Corn Nuts?
Leave a Review
Reviews (49)
Back to TopWhoa! Not sure I would ever want to eat something with random corn nuts. I like my teeth.
Anonymous
10/31/2023
I have been using this recipe for the past three years at my family’s thanksgiving and it’s always been a hit. I have noticed since making it that using sweet cornbread is really the way to go with this recipe, I find that sweetness blends really well with the other ingredients. I also don’t add the corn nuts and Chile since my younger family members don’t like spicy foods and the corn nuts make it to crunchy. Overall this recipe is really good and this is just my take on it, but I think it makes it even better.
Anonymous
Massachusetts
11/24/2021
Good, not incredible, but I also made a few mistakes so it could be my bad. But at least the recipe is forgiving. Leaving a review to answer some questions / give my experience on some issues others described below: - I halved the recipe but I accidentally used the full recommended amount of salt (1 tbsp). Surprisingly I thought the saltiness level was perfect, not too salty at all. I have a salty palate, but even so would recommend generously seasoning throughout so that the 1tbsp at the end is the right amount and doubling it would actually be a mistake. 1 thai chili (after halving, that's the full amount) was slightly too spicy for me, but chiles do tend regionally to vary so maybe mine was on the spicy side? - To the person who asked if the recipe could be done with less butter: I literally forgot to add the butter and it was fine. I cooked the onion and celery only in the sausage fat (I used a standard pork breakfast sausage from Whole Foods, since the recipe doesn't specify what type of meat and in the vid they make homemade pork sausage). The vegetables browned a lot faster and the corn nuts powdered stuck to the pan basically right away and thus probably didn't toast enough, but it wasn't a huge setback. I only realized I forgot to add the butter only after mixing everything (stock, cornbread, etc). I melted about 1/2 of the butter needed (which because I halved the recipe was 1/2 a stick) and mixed it right into the mixture. I bet things would have tasted better if they were cooked in butter, but it didn't seem to affect the texture at all because the end result was not dry or bland or anything. Given this, I think you can easily half the amount of butter. - Texture was the textbook stuffing texture, soft but distinct cubes on the inside, nice crispy top. It was not dry or mushy at all, which I've heard are the two extremes of cornbread stuffing. I used a 1/4 recipe of BA's cornbread recipe (linked above), and about a 1/2 recipe of Claire Saffitz's brown butter corn muffins from her book. That was about 1.5 lb cornbread, which wasn't too much or too little, as I've seen reviews before mention (one said they had too much cornbread, another said they needed more). I found BA's cornbread on its own INCREDIBLY bland, but in stuffing it wasn't noticeable. Claire's muffins are delicious on their own, but so soft/tender they were hard to cut up, and they were pretty sweet for a stuffing base, but I liked the pops of sweetness and the fresh corn, so would not discourage people using a sweeter cornbread and/or one with fresh corn.
Anonymous
Los Angeles, California
11/30/2020
So the recipe came out delicious. But a lot of the instruction are very vague. First off the cornbread should be already be made when starting this recipe. Second you should cut your cornbread into pretty big square pieces before baking because it will break apart as you are tossing it around while baking it again to get it crisp. The corn bread needs to be pretty crispy and golden almost dried out before mixing everything together so it can soak up all the liquid. I think you could add a little more stock to the mixture as well. But came out very delicious full of flavor.
Mark
Dallas, TX
11/26/2020
I've never been much of a stuffing person but I've always wanted to like it. With this recipe, now I LOVE it! The flavors are just incredible in this recipe. It's everything you would want out of a decadent Thanksgiving side dish. I made it last year and have already had multiple requests from family to do it again. This is a new Thanksgiving staple in our house!
Anonymous
Boynton Beach, FL
11/24/2020
I must've done something wrong, because I did NOT love this. It was thoroughly "meh". The bread turned into complete mush and it was kind of tasteless. I typically LOVE Bon Appetit recipes but this one ... ugh. I might have to re-make it based on all the great reviews here!
RachLow
Detroit, MI
11/16/2020
I've been wanting to make this recipe ever since seeing the "Making Perfect" series. This truly blew my socks off. The recipe has a lot of small parts working together, but the greatest ones are the homemade sausage and the chili oil. These have been the two takeaways that I consisntently make, even when they are not going into this recipe.
Simmered_Down
simmereddown.com
5/4/2020