This is a wonderfully versatile dressing that can be used with roast chicken, turkey, duck or goose. It’s great for stuffed pork chops and can be rolled up in chicken, pork or veal cutlets.
Your holiday crown roast of pork would certainly benefit from having this recipe cooked inside the crown. Truth is, it makes a great starch side dish for any non-seafood entree.
The hack in this recipe is one that was taught to me in the mid 1970’s by a cook from Puerto Rico. He added baking powder so that the dressing would cook up light and airy. Then he made sure to use lots of flavors – pork sausage, chicken stock and poultry seasoning – so that it could deliver plenty of taste in spite of the lightness that the baking powder delivers.
Sometimes I add ingredients for sweetness such as petite diced fresh apples or raisins. Good when paired with pork or duck but use a light touch so that the fruit is barely detectable. Or even better, use your imagination and see what you can come up with!
As always, you are welcome to share your thoughts in the “Leave A Reply” section below. We would love to know what you think!
Bread And Sausage Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 Oz Butter To grease baking dish.
- 1 Cup Diced Onion
- 1 Cup Sliced Celery
- 1 Lb White Bread Cut To ½ Inch Cubes
- 1 Cup Chicken or Vegetable Stock
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1 Lb Ground Breakfast Sausage
- ½ Tsp Baking Powder
- ½ Tsp Salt
- ¼ Tsp Ground Black Pepper
- ¼ Tsp Poultry Season or substitute equal parts Rosemary, Sage and Thyme totaling ½ teaspoon.
Instructions
- Place cubed bread on a cookie sheet and baked in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes until slightly browned and each cube is dry and crisp. Turn every 5 minutes while baking so that cubes brown evenly. Allow bread to cool and transfer to a large mixing bowl.
- Break sausage into small bits and drop in a hot shallow saute pan. Stir until sausage is cooked and slightly brown and then transfer the sausage to a bowl reserving some of the rendered fat in the saute pan.
- Saute the onion and celery in the saute pan from step 2 and cook until al dente. Combine with the sausage.
- Grease the inside of a shallow 9” by 13” baking pan with butter and set aside.
- In a separate bowl beat the eggs, stock, salt and pepper until smooth then combine with the sausage and vegetable mixture.
- Pour the egg/stock/sausage/vegetable mixture over the bread cubes, sprinkle on the baking powder and mix until all of the liquid is absorbed by the bread cubes. If some of the bread remains dry add more stock, water or even milk.
- Transfer mixture to the greased baking pan and baked at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes until the center of the dressing reaches the temperature of 170 degrees.
- Serve.