These Thanksgiving Stuffing Recipes Will Make the Feast Legendary (2024)

FAQs

What is another name for stuffing Thanksgiving? ›

What is dressing? In the context of Thanksgiving, the word dressing is commonly used to mean the same exact thing as stuffing—including when it's cooked inside the bird.

But only one dish reigns supreme. All hail the almighty stuffing. Something magical happens when stale bread meets butter, celery and tons of sage. Flavors meld and the bread turns soft and gooey and outshines everything else on the Thanksgiving plate.

The earliest documentary evidence is the Roman cookbook, Apicius De Re Coquinaria, which contains recipes for stuffed chicken, dormouse, hare, and pig. Most of the stuffings described consist of vegetables, herbs and spices, nuts, and spelt (a cereal), and frequently contain chopped liver, brains, and other organ meat.

However, as Thanksgiving meals became more common over the years, stuffing began to take a much more prominent place at the holiday table. Early Thanksgiving menus from the 19^th century list stuffed turkeys and hams as main courses, indicating that by the 1800s, stuffing had come to the forefront of most holiday meals.

But for the Thanksgiving side dish in the South, the term dressing was adopted in place of stuffing, which was viewed as a crude term, during the Victorian era. Although dressing and stuffing are interchangeable terms, the signature ingredient of this Thanksgiving side dish in the South is cornbread.

Jane Stern: You can divide the U.S. in half by stuffing versus dressing. In the South, it's called dressing. In the Northeast, it's called stuffing.

At temperatures below 165°F you risk exposure to salmonella or E. coli, two very scary and gross bacteria. The problem with stuffing your roast turkey is that when the turkey's meat is safely cooked, the stuffing inside still is not.

Typically high in fat, carbs and salt, stuffing can be made fresh or purchased chilled, frozen or dehydrated. Traditionally, a stuffing would use the giblets of the bird with the addition of sausage meat, a source of starch, such as bread, with some aromatics such as onion, herbs and spices.

Starting with dried sourdough bread, celery, onion, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, chicken broth and eggs. A whole stick of butter goes in the pan adding onions, herbs and garlic (sausage is optional). Eggs combine everything together before going in the oven on a baking dish.

For one, modern stovetops weren't widely available until the 18th century — birds were roasted on a spit over an open fire — which made it difficult to cook side dishes at the same time. The solution? Simply cook the sides in the bird. Moreover, preparing stuffing this way meant more bang for one's caloric buck.

Why do they call it stuffing? ›

Just as the name implies, stuffing is a mixture of dried bread, herbs, and other flavorful mix-ins that's literally stuffed in your holiday bird.

As it cooks, the herbs in the stuffing infuse into the bird, giving it a lot more flavor. The turkey, in turn, drips all its delicious juices into the stuffing as it cooks, moistening it and making it taste great.

Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.

The late Ruth Siems, a 1953 home economics graduate, is credited with the invention of Stove Top stuffing. The product hit shelves in 1971 as a dish appropriate for Thanksgiving but also for everyday meals. The secret behind the dish is the dimensions of the bread crumbs, which General Foods patented in 1975.

Although the French word "farce" can be translated to the verb "stuff", the English term farce can be traced back to 14th century England. Interchangeable with the term forcemeat, the description refers to food that people would consider a stuffing.

So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish. Additionally, dressing, especially in the American South, is often made with cornbread instead of pieces of a baguette or plain ol' white bread.

The word “stuffing” dates back to 14th Century English, when it was used synonymously with the more uncomfortable sounding forcemeat. Soon after, Anglos borrowed the slicker French word, farce (from the Latin verb facire or “to stuff”).