Growing up, Jimmy Dean Sausage was a breakfast staple—my brother and I could eat sausage for days. This sausage and apple stuffing recipe uses Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage as well as fresh sage to give it lots of flavor! With this sourdough stuffing, your friends and family will be more thankful for fresh stuffing than anyone thought was possible.
This homemade stuffing recipe with sausage, sage, apples, and sourdough bread is sure to knock your holiday socks off.
Why you need to make this recipe
- Foolproof: This sausage, apple, and sage stuffing is just a few steps and features ingredients that you can find at any supermarket! Get ready for an instant favorite that won't have you dreading the preparation.
- Delicious: Sage sausage and sourdough lend lots of comfort to this dish, but apples and fresh turkey stock give this dish the edge it needs.
- Comforting: This Jimmy Dean sausage stuffing warm and scoopable—everything you need in a holiday dish.
Foodology Geek recipe notes
Most people, myself included, are familiar with our stuffing being cooked inside of our Thanksgiving turkey. However, if you want to avoid the sog-fest, cook your stuffing in a casserole dish and make sure to add some moisture with a rich turkey stock to preserve the flavor you know and love. This is definitely my favorite sausage stuffing recipe—best sausage stuffing ever!
This recipe also uses a classic French mirepoix—a mixture of diced celery, onions, and carrots. I usually use half of one small onion, two medium carrots, and three stalks of celery. This will add lots of flavor to your homemade stuffing! Because you'll be cooking the mirepoix in the pan containing grease from your sausage, the water from the vegetables will allow the flavors to combine beautifully. Sage sausage stuffing for the win!
Ingredient notes
- Bread: I like using a rustic sourdough, and I cut or tear the bread apart and toast in the oven. For an easy and quick substitution, use your favorite brand of packaged pre-cut bread cubes.
- Veggies: Celery, carrot, onion, and apples!
- Sausage: I use Jimmy Dean's Sage Sausage. However, you can use sweet Italian sausage or any other sausage that you prefer!
- Stock: To make my own turkey stock, I always use the giblets, neck, and backbone of my turkey. The backbone is especially easy to use if you spatchcock your turkey. If you don't want to make turkey stock and can't find it in your local grocery store, chicken stock can be used in its place.
Step by step instructions
- Bread: Make sure you have dry or stale sourdough bread on hand. Toast on a baking sheet in the oven in order to prepare the bread for its final baking.
- Sausage: Brown your sausage on medium/high heat until the sausage is thoroughly cooked and set aside in a large bowl.
- Veggies: Using the same pan, sauté your veggies and apples. Set these aside with your sausage.
- Combine: In a buttered casserole dish, mix your bread, sausage, and veggies. Pour your stock over the mix and cook in the oven at 350ºF until golden brown!
FAQs and helpful tips
While most recipes you might come across feature eggs as a binder, I've been making my stuffing without eggs for as long as I can remember. This lends to its crispy texture and allows the ingredients to shine on their own, but be sure to cover with aluminum foil while your dish cooks the oven in order to ensure that your stuffing retains its moisture. Upon the last 10/15 minutes of cooking, I usually remove the foil.
Feel free to prep your ingredients beforehand! Wait to mix your bread and cooked ingredients with the broth until you're ready to get cooking, so that your stuffing doesn't get too soggy.
While this stuffing recipe calls for sourdough bread, you can really use any bread that you have on hand so long as its dry enough. However, if using cornbread, fresh will do just fine.
Other Thanksgiving recipes that you might like
- Spatchcock Turkey
- How To Make Stock
- Cranberry Sauce
- Green Bean Casserole
- Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans
- The Best Dinner Rolls
- Pecan Pie
- Pumpkin Pie
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars with Caramel Sauce
- What to do with Thanksgiving Leftovers
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Sage Sausage and Bread Stuffing with Apples
Ingredients
- 1 lb sage seasoned sausage
- 3 stalks celery finely diced
- 2 carrots peeled and finely diced
- ½ onion finely diced
- 2 apples diced
- 1 loaf sourdough bread cubed, I like the seeded variety
- 1 tbsp fresh sage
- 4 cups turkey broth substitute veggie or chicken broth
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350℉
- Spread diced bread on a large sheet pan and bake until dried out. Timing will depend on how old your bread is. When crunchy, remove from oven and set aside.
- While bread is drying out in the oven, brown the sausage in a large heavy-bottomed pan.
- When browned, remove sausage from pan and add to a large bowl.
- Drain off most of the oil in the pan. Leave a small amount of oil and all of the brown bits for sautéing the mirepoix.
- Add the mirepoix (diced celery, onions, and carrots), sauté until tender and fragrant.
- Add the diced apples to the mirepoix and saute for a few more minutes.
- Add the sage to the pan with the mirepoix.
- Add the mirepoix mixture, and diced apples the sausage.
- Add the bread to the sausage and apple mixture and toss well.
- Add the broth. Add enough broth to ensure that mixture is moist. You may not need to use the entire 4 cups of broth. Moisture can be adjusted to preference.
- Salt and pepper to taste.
- Cover with foil and bake for about 25 minutes.
- Remove the foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes, until the top is nice and golden brown.
- Let rest 15 minutes before serving.
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