Do Ahead Stuffing Recipes

MAKE AHEAD STUFFING

Steps:

• Coat a 9" by 13" baking dish with butter. In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt butter until foaming. Add onion and celery and sauté until translucent, about 7 to 8 minutes.
• Meanwhile, whisk eggs in large bowl. Stir in broth, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.
• To skillet, add parsley, sage, thyme, and marjoram and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer to bowl with eggs and mix well.
• Add bread cubes and toss to combine. Transfer to buttered baking dish and cover with foil. Refrigerate until ready to bake, or freeze if you're planning to bake it farther in advance than the next day.
• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Keep stuffing tightly covered with foil and bake until mostly heated through, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until crispy edges form, about 10 to 20 minutes longer.

MAKE-AHEAD SAUSAGE STUFFING

Steps:

• Melt 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up into bite-sized pieces, until it is browned and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer the sausage with a slotted spoon to a large bowl.
• Melt 5 tablespoons of the remaining butter in the skillet. Add the onions, celery, sage, thyme, 1 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper, and cook, stirring frequently, until the onions and celery are soft and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the mixture to the bowl with the sausage; add the bread cubes, and toss to coat.
• Let the bread-sausage mixture cool to room temperature. Transfer it to a resealable plastic bag, label and date, and freeze for up to 2 weeks.
• To serve, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Heat the stock and 4 tablespoons of the remaining butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat until the butter melts. Whisk the eggs and parsley together in a large bowl. Break the frozen stuffing with your hands into smaller chunks, add to the bowl and toss. Add the stock-butter mixture, and toss to combine. Transfer to the prepared baking dish, and dot with the 2 remaining tablespoons butter. Cover tightly with foil, and bake until the stuffing is hot, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Uncover and continue to bake until golden brown on top, about 20 minutes more. Serve warm.

DO-AHEAD STUFFING

Steps:

• Melt the butter in a large deep skillet over medium heat. Add celery and onion; cook and stir until tender, about 10 minutes. Blend in the bread crumbs, salt, poultry seasoning, pepper, thyme and sage. Stir in enough chicken broth to moisten. Spoon into large resealable bags and refrigerate for up to 3 days.
• To bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Place the stuffing into greased casserole dishes.
• Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven. If stuffing a bird, cook according to the recipe for your bird and place any extra stuffing into a casserole dish to bake.

EASY SAUSAGE STUFFING (MAKE AHEAD)

Steps:

• Prepare a small dice of celery and onion, and saute with butter until soft.
• Remove from pan and reserve. Add crumbled sausage to pan and cook through.
• Drain sausage on paper towels and combine with celery mixture. This can now be refrigerated until you are ready to stuff the turkey.
• When you are ready to stuff the turkey combine celery mixture, sausage, stuffing mix and sage in a large bowl.
• Add chicken broth a little at a time just until stuffing is moist, not mushy or runny.
• Rinse turkey and empty the cavity. Place turkey in roasting pan.
• Fill the body cavity with stuffing mixture. Also fill the cavity at the neck under the skin with stuffing. Pat any additional stuffing between the turkey legs. Prepare turkey as desired.
• To cook in a casserole dish instead of stuffing the turkey, place stuffing mixture in a greased casserole dish and bake according to package directions. If stuffing is drying out dot with butter and add small amounts of broth to moisten.

DO-AHEAD STUFFED SHELLS

Steps:

• If serving immediately, heat oven to 350 degrees.
• Make Tomato Sauce: Soak mushrooms in the warm warm until softened, 30 minutes. Drain and reserve liquid. Finely chop mushrooms.
• Heat olive oil in medium saucepan over medium-low heat; add onion and garlic and saute, stirring occasionally, until soft, 10 minutes. Add wine and cook until almost evaporated. Stir in tomatoes, mushrooms and the reserved soaking liquid, salt, and pepper and cook over medium heat 10 minutes. Chop parsley with basil; add to sauce and simmer 5 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings.
• Meanwhile, cook pasta in large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, 10-12 minutes. Drain and set aside.
• Mix remaining ingredients except Parmesan in medium bowl, then stir in 1/4 cup Parmesan until blended.
• Using soup spoon, stuff pasta shells with cheese mixture.
• Place half the tomato sauce in casserole large enough to hold shells in single layer, or divide sauce among 2 or 3 smaller casseorles. Place shells over tomato sauce, then spoon remaining sauce over shells.
• Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan over shells. Cover and bake until heated through, 12-15 minutes. Serve with additional Parmesan.
• Or, let unbaked sauced shells cool to room temperature, cover tightly, and freeze up to 2 months. To serve, thaw covered in refrigerator, then bake as directed and serve with addtiional grated Parmesan cheese.