Cornbread Dressing

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This Cornbread Dressing is a family recipe that I have modified so that it incorporates only real ingredients. It’s quite a few steps BUT extremely simple, so don’t let the length of the recipe intimidate you. It’s worth it, I promise.

If it helps you to have a bird’s eye view, here’s the nutshell: You will first make a cornbread and then set that aside. Next, you’ll slowly cook veggies and in a separate pot make a cream of chicken soup. You then break up the cornbread, mix it with the veggies and soup, and bake. That’s it! See? You got this.

The Ingredients

As with anything you cook from scratch, a huge factor is the quality of ingredients used. I’ll highlight a few of the main ones below.

Cornbread: I have a whole post on how to make amazing cornbread. The cornbread used in this recipe is the same as my Southern Sweet Cornbread, but with less sugar. Give that post a read if you are unfamiliar with milling grains and corn at home and why it’s the better choice for baking.

Dairy: Use real, grass-fed butter. Organic is great but I’ll always choose grass-fed over organic when it comes to butter. If you have access to raw cream, sour cream, and/or buttermilk… use this. If you don’t, at the very least go for the full fat version. (Fat is good for you!)

Produce: If I can’t find onions and celery from a local farm (thankfully, I have a pretty reliable one close by), I get them from Azure Standard. Always try to by organic when it comes to produce.

Chicken Stock: Aside from the cornbread, this is the other MAIN ingredient in this recipe. Read my post or watch my video on How to Boil a Whole Chicken and learn how to make your own stock. It’s much less expensive to do it yourself and has an incomparably better taste than anything packaged. If you don’t have homemade stock on hand, I recommend you boil a chicken and make some for this recipe.

Step 1: Make Cornbread

Preheat your oven to 400° Fahrenheit. Choose either two 8×8 pans or one 9×13 pan.

Place 1 tablespoon of butter into each 8×8 pan (or 2 tablespoons into a 9×13 pan) and set the pan(s) inside the preheating oven. Watch the butter so it doesn’t burn, remove the pan(s) when the butter is melted.

All ingredient measurements are listed in the recipe below.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: corn flour, wheat flour, honey granules, baking powder, and salt. Set this aside.

Next, melt 8 tablespoons of butter in a separate bowl, then whisk in the other wet ingredients: buttermilk, sour cream, and lastly the eggs. (Be careful not to add cold eggs directly to melted butter or it might cook them.)

All at once, add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until everything is just incorporated.

Carefully remove the hot pan(s) from the preheated oven. Pour the batter into the pan(s) and do NOT stir. Place the pan(s) back into the hot oven and cook for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove the pan(s) from the oven and set them aside to cool.

Step 2: Make Dressing

While the cornbread cools, you can move on to making the “dressing.”

In a wide heavy bottomed pan over medium heat, melt 1 stick of butter. Add the diced onion and celery and cook until they are translucent. You want to cook these slowly, this should take roughly 10 minutes. Move on to the next step but watch the onions and celery closely, stirring and adjusting the heat to prevent browning.

In a separate heavy bottomed pot over medium heat, melt another stick of butter. Whisk the flour into the butter, keeping it moving constantly for 2-3 minutes. Add the salt and pepper. SLOWLY whisk in the Chicken Stock, ½ cup at a time. Adding the stock should take a few minutes. Whisk after each addition and wait until the mixture thickens before adding more stock. Finally, stir in the heavy cream and turn off the heat. (Congratulations, you’ve just made cream of chicken soup.)

Add the onion and celery mixture to the pot with the “soup.” Stir well.

Step 3: Assemble Cornbread Dressing

Using your *clean* hands, crumble the cornbread into the pot with the dressing. Stir until the cornbread is soaked with the liquid dressing.

Distribute ⅔ into a 9×13 pan and ⅓ into a 8×8 pan (no need to grease these ahead of time). Spread it out evenly and bake in a preheated oven (still set at 400° F) for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Cornbread Dressing is typically enjoyed during the holidays along with turkey, gravy, and cranberry sauce. Let us know in the comments what your favorite dish to accompany it is!

Leave a comment below letting me know if you tried this recipe and what you thought! What is your favorite dish to accompany Cornbread Dressing?

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