Occasionally I see recipes for making homemade stovetop type stuffing. I never expect it to taste as good as that wonderful stuffing you get in the box but I figured it was worth a shot.
Yesterday I made one of the fastest crockpot meals to ever throw in before you walk out the door in the morning, Crockpot Chicken & Biscuits. Of course, any time I have anything like poultry with gravy, I want stuffing (and cranberry sauce). I love homemade stuffing but sometimes I crave the kind that comes in a box. Something about the spiciness of it is just over the top for me!
Never one to run to the store after work, I grabbed my computer and googled "homemade stovetop recipes". It didn't sound too hard. In fact, the lady that blogged the recipe mentioned that it took her only about 15 minutes longer to make than the box kind. My husband was mowing the yard so I had 15 minutes. I also have a freezer full of stale bread so I gave it a shot.
Was it good? Yea BABY! It was delicious! In fact, I loved it! Probably I will never again buy another box of stuffing. It was super cheap and also much better for you than those crazy ingredients you find in the boxed kind.
I think it will also be good made with cornbread. You can bet the next time I make Homemade Cornbread Muffins, I will be freezing some of those babies for making homemade cornbread stovetop. I think I can just sub in toasted cornbread crumbles for croutons in this recipe.
One thing that I will change in this recipe is that the blogger whose recipe I used, toasted slices of bread and then cut it into cubes. Maybe I'm just messy, but what a huge mess that was ha!! I had crumbs flying all over the place. I changed that part of the recipe to cube the bread BEFORE toasting. I think that will work better for me.
Also, the original post used fresh celery and onions. I'm sure that is completely wonderful but blahh.. I didn't have all of that. I used dried, minced onion and skipped the celery. She also used chicken broth. I didn't have that either and used chicken bouillon to make my broth. It was straight on!
Here's how I made Homemade Stove Top Stuffing AT HOME MY WAY:
Homemade Stove Top Stuffing
(adapted from www.savoryreviews.com)
Ingredients:
- 8 slices of bread (I used a combination of bread/buns)
- 3 Tablespoons margarine/butter
- 1 Tablespoon minced onion
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 Tablespoon dried parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon sage
- 1/8 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cube chicken bouillon
- 1 1/4 cup boiling water
Cut bread into cubes (kitchen scissors work bests for this). Place the cubes on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or so until browning. Dump them into a bowl for better pouring later on (I used the dish I would be ultimately serving my stuffing in).
Bring water to boil in separate dish (I used my measuring cup in the microwave), drop in bouillon cube while measuring the dry ingredients, etc.), stir when it starts to dissolve.
Measure all of the dried ingredients (except the bouillon cube) into a small dish so they are ready to go. (HINT: You could pre-measure these for storing in the pantry so they are ready to go.)
In a small pot, melt the margarine/butter, add in the dry seasonings and the chicken broth. Bring to a slight boil and then remove from the heat. Dump in the croutons. Stir to mix and cover. Let sit 5 minutes or so before serving.
Ta-DA!!!
I served this dish with Homemade Cranberry Sauce. I had cranberries in the freezer so I used the whole bag, served half of the cranberry sauce and put the remainder in a jar for keeping in the freezer for next time.
The stovetop stuffing is incredibly frugal as it uses dried/stale bread. You could also stirfry some garden vegetables or mushrooms for mixing in (stir the cooked vegetables into the broth before adding the croutons). I will also be trying this recipe with cornbread!
The original recipe that I used for Homemade Stovetop Stuffing is found HERE! A special thank you to this blogger at Savory Reviews! What a great article and recipe. She gave me the confidence and inspiration to jump right on in there and try this terrific little recipe.
Let me know if you try it at your house!
I shared this recipe here:
