Run out of ready made stuffing or just have some leftover bread? Check out this stuffing recipe that’s traditionally as easy as it gets!
Our inability to give up things and processes, even though we have no longer use of them, is what creates traditions in our culture. We like to carry on doing things that we were taught, though the circumstances that implied those things, have changed over time.
In terms of resource management, traditions are our worst habits because they once may held a special purpose, like harvest celebrations when actually people did the harvest, instead of machines, the prevalence of nut based desserts at autumn through winter when nuts weren’t available 24/7 or our favorite Roast Turkey pieces for Thanksgiving when the era of Turkey being the only available meat to celebrate a gathering is long gone.
Of course, if something has no real-world practical use, it doesn’t mean that we can’t assign value to it as we do with myriad things from art through brands to feelings and more.
We use traditions to create continuity through generations and a sense of belonging to a group of people like family, friends, associations or nations even if such things are just as useless as cargo cults rituals or our fixation on stuffing when we rarely have stale bread anymore.
Stuffing, filling, or dressing is a mixture of herbs, spices, and some sort of starch, like bread that is used to fill the cavity of another food item.
The stuffing has dual purpose in cooking. One is to retain moisture where it is stuffed and the second is to save us from chewing on stale or dry bread. Of course, nowadays with the sugar and preservatives filled bread, we don’t necessarily find ourselves in such troubles. Some time ago though, when bread was made in much bigger batches to save on fuel for the oven and manual labor for kneading, bread was eaten up or went stale before the next batch was prepared.
So, to save the precious energy, bread provided various dishes were developed to save the stale bread. Crushing bread to breadcrumbs for breaded meat like Chicken Kiev, Fish sticks, Chicken parmesan or the mighty Cordon bleu are just a few of the immense repertoire breadcrumbs found a gig to be featured on.
Much easier than making breadcrumbs was just to use the stale bread as it was whole or cut up into pieces and mixed with another ingredient. During war times when food was rationed, mixing bread with ground meat turned out to be a huge hit because it increased the volume of the meal, yet it didn’t diminish but rather increased its enjoyability. This is how meatloaf and meatballs came to prominence and until the keto craze, it could easily support the same or more than half of their weight from bread.
To fulfill its first purpose of retaining, moisture stuffing actually has to be stuffed into something, not just laid bare on a baking sheet letting to be scorched by the heat of the oven that is more popular nowadays.
If someone thinks that buying bread for the sole purpose of letting it go stale only to soften up with liquid, so we can make it crunchy again in the heated oven, sounds like a controversially ineffective process then most likely they are right.
While not many of us buy a brand-new car, immediately sell it on the secondhand market then renting it back, we like to do such things with our food for time to time. When a dish that was designed to salvage undesirable, yet edible food gets into the mainstream like fajita , potato skins or everyone’s favorite sausages, the inefficiencies of making it from completely fresh ingredients gets sidelined.
This is why we can easily buy prepackaged stuffing in our favorite shops which saves us from the hassle of cutting or the heart wrenching sight of letting a completely fresh and crunchy crusted bread turning slowly stale by the minute.
Once we have stale bread, we should not hesitate to save it from oblivion though, and if stuffing it into a cavity or pretend to be stuffed between two slices of meat seems like too much of a hassle, just soak it in some beaten eggs and roast it in the oven.
Ingredients
- 2 cups / 500g Bread (cubed) (stale will hold its shape better during the preparation process)
- 2 tablespoons / 30g Cooking oil or butter
- 2½ cups / 400g Onion (diced)
- 2 cups / 200g Celery (diced)
- 1 teaspoon / 5g Salt to taste
- 3 tablespoons / 12g Parsley (freshly chopped)
- 1 teaspoon / 0.5 Sage (dried)
- 1 tablespoon / 3.5g Rosemary (freshly chopped)
- 1 tablespoon / 2g Thyme (freshly chopped)
- 3¼ cups / 750g Water (only if bread is dried or stale)
- 2 medium / 100g Eggs
How to make Stuffing
- We can use either stale or completely dried out bread. Dried bread is much harder to cut up so if we have bread for the sole purpose of making stuffing then cutting it up in advance will save us some effort and time. Best part of the stuffing is the crunchy crust so choose bread with plenty of crust to start with, like french baguette, bread rolls or similar stuff.
- Heat oil in a skillet and sauté (stir-fry) diced onion, celery and salt until glassy / translucent look, about 5 minutes.
- Lower the heat to medium low then slowly caramelize the onion and celery until it is browned, about 15 – 20 minutes.
- In a big bowl, mix bread, freshly chopped parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and the freshly prepared onion-celery.
- Beat eggs and water together.
- Mix the egg/water mixture with the bread.
- If we decide to use stuffing to stuff something with it, this is the time. Secure the holes with wooden toothpicks, cocktail sticks or small skewers. Check out: Chicken Stuffing Recipe
- Or just carry on and place the stuffing into an ovenproof dish.
- We can also roast some mushrooms and make them into balls. If short of bread, use some breadcrumbs as an emergency option.
- Roast for about 20 – 35 minutes in a 425°F/220°C oven. If we have a broiler, it can be even faster but it needs some experimenting with the rack position and heat as the top can scorch quite easily.
Enjoy!
F.A.Q.
What is stuffing usually made of?
There is no steadfast rule about what goes into stuffing. Most often it is some sort of starch like bread, breadcrumbs, cereals but vegetables can also used as stuffing in various dishes.
What is the best stuffing?
The best stuffing, of course, is the one we make in our own kitchen with the ingredients, we like and trust.
Why is it called stuffing?
Stuffing is called stuffing because it is supposed to be stuffed into some cavity. Nowadays, we don’t always do that, of course but that’s beside the point.
Stuffing Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups Bread cubed (stale will hold its shape better during the preparation process)
- 2 tablespoons Cooking oil or butter
- 2½ cups Onion diced
- 2 cups Celery diced
- 1 teaspoon Salt to taste
- 3 tablespoons Parsley freshly chopped
- 1 teaspoon Sage dried
- 1 tablespoon Rosemary freshly chopped
- 1 tablespoon Thyme freshly chopped
- 3¼ cups Water only if bread is dried or stale
- 2 medium Eggs
Instructions
- We can use either stale or completely dried out bread. Dried bread is much harder to cut up so if we have bread for the sole purpose of making stuffing then cutting it up in advance will save us some effort and time. Best part of the stuffing is the crunchy crust so choose bread with plenty of crust to start with, like french baguette, bread rolls or similar stuff.
- Heat oil in a skillet and sauté (stir-fry) diced onion, celery and salt until glassy / translucent look, about 5 minutes.
- Lower the heat to medium low then slowly caramelize the onion and celery until it is browned, about 15 – 20 minutes.
- In a big bowl, mix bread, freshly chopped parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme and the freshly prepared onion-celery.
- Beat eggs and water together.
- Mix the egg water mixture with the bread.
- If we decide to use stuffing to stuff something with it, this is the time. Secure the holes with wooden toothpicks, cocktail sticks or small skewers.
- Or just carry on and place the stuffing into an ovenproof dish.
- We can also roast some mushrooms and make them into balls. If short of bread, use some breadcrumbs as an emergency option.
- Roast for about 20 – 35 minutes in a 425°F/220°C oven. If we have a broiler, it can be even faster but it needs some experimenting with the rack position and heat as the top can scorch quite easily.
Notes
Pin now, Enjoy later!
