Nanas Best Turkey Dressing Recipes

NANA'S THANKSGIVING DRESSING

Steps:

• Cook turkey giblets while preparing vegetables - Save broth - strip meat off turkey neck and save for dressing.
• In deep pan fry sausage and ground beef, use 12 cube butter with meat. Fry until no longer pink.
• Add a few of the diced vegetables, about a cup at a time. Stir and cook, add more butter and vegetables gradually. Also, add spices as you add vegetables. Don't use table salt as the pork has salt in it.
• As vegetables cook down (test carrots for doneness) pour broth and croutons alternately into mixture, keep stirring all the while. The croutons will make the mixture thick, be sure and don't get it soupy. (if you do, add more croutons) add meat from stripped turkey neck.
• May be served like this or put in baking dish and bake about 1 hour at 350*.

NANA'S TURKEY STUFFING

Steps:

• The night before, lay out the bread slices to dry.
• Cut dried bread into cubes.
• In a large frying pan, brown loose sausage with onions and celery.
• Add apricots and seasonings.
• Pour sausage mixture into large bowl with bread and combine.
• Stuff turkey or place in casserole and moisten with chicken broth.
• If using casserole, place in oven with turkey for about the last hour.
• Moisten further with turkey drippings as necessary.

THE BEST TURKEY DRESSING (STUFFING)

Steps:

• Melt 6 tablespoons butter in a large frying pan. Add onions. Cook over medium heat until onions are quite soft and tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer onions and butter to a large mixing bowl. Set aside. Melt another 6 tablespoons butter in the same frying pan. Add apple. Cook over medium heat, until lightly colored but not mushy. Transfer apples and butter to mixing bowl with onions.
• Crumble sausage into frying pan. Cook over medium heat, until lightly browned. With a slotted spoon, transfer sausage to mixing bowl. Reserve fat. Add remaining ingredients, except eggs and stock, to mixing bowl. Mix well. Add eggs. Mix. Add enough stock to bowl to make a moist, but not runny, mixture. Add fat to stuffing if desired. Stuff a 20-lb. turkey. If cooking dressing separately from turkey, pour fat over dressing in casserole. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes, or until nicely browned and cooked through.

NANA'S THANKSGIVING AND CHRISTMAS PAN DRESSING

Steps:

• First, prepare your cornbread which is the base of this dish:.
• Heat oven to 450°F; grease 9-inch cast iron skillet or 9-inch square pan.
• Put it in the oven to heat. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour the batter into greased pan, scraping sides and bottom of bowl. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the top is golden brown.
• Set prepared cornbread aside to cool. When cool, remove from pan and in a large 4 quart mixing bowl, cube into 1 inch cubes or you can just crumble it with your hand (which is what Nana would do).
• Carefully de-bone the chicken and shred/chunk. You want to end up with at least 3 cups of chicken. More is fine too.
• Finely chop celery and small chunk the onion. In a heavy bottom skillet, combine drippings or cooking fat and 4 TB of stock . Add onions and saute on medium heat, stirring and scraping bottom of pan often until onions are beginning to become clear but not yet limp (about 3-4 minutes). Add more broth at any time you feel you need it- to prevent burning. Add celery and cook about 3 minutes longer until celery is crisp tender and onion is clear and limp and perhaps beginning to caramelize. Remove from heat, stir in all seasonings and set mixture aside for now.
• Grease (or spray with nonstick) your disposable pans. You can use glass and line with foil too. Set aside.
• Combine the cubed or crumbled cornbread and cut/shredded chicken in the same big 4 qt or larger bowl. Add reserved celery and onion mixture.
• In a small bowl, beat the 6 eggs until frothy. Then, add to cornbread, shredded chicken,and cooked celery mixture. Stir minimally. Add 6-8 cups of chicken stock 1 cup at a time until the texture is still bready yet pourable. Take your time because the cornbread will absorb liquid over the course of a few minutes. If you overdo the liquid, add some of your torn whole wheat bread. Nana says: "You want it more moist than dry, ok?" Don't mix until you've let it sit for a few minutes.
• Preheat oven to 400°F.
• After allowing the cornbread to set for 2 minutes, mix to combine, but don't over-handle.
• Pour (if you can't pour you need more liquid)into your greased and disposable or foil lined glass dishes and bake for 45 minutes or until set and browned on top. If edges are done to a couple of inches in, then the center is probably done enough too.

NANA'S DRESSING RECIPE

Steps:

• Nana uses potato rolls but it wasn't recognized as an ingredient, so I just put white, but either one will work. We use an 11-13 pan of corn bread also the amount didn't show up on the ingredients for some reason.
• Mix it all up and put enough broth so that it's kind of sloppy. Nana said she kept adding until it shook in the pan like Jello.
• Then bake at 325 and stir it half way through for an hour or an hour and a half until it's browned on top.

NANA'S BEST TURKEY DRESSING

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove giblets from turkey. Cook in large covered pot with water. Add diced celery, diced onion, rubbed sage, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper. Cook on low-medium heat until tender. Remove giblets from pot and set aside to cool.
• Save all giblet broth to add to turkey broth. After the turkey has finished baking, carefully drain turkey broth into a large bowl. Add the giblet broth to turkey broth. Add stuffing mix to broth. Using a wooden spoon, mix together until moist until a ball can be formed in your hand and stay together (not stiff with bread).
• Taste and add more salt if necessary. Add cans of chicken broth, if necessary. Spread into 9 x 13 pans or spoon into muffin tins. Bake until brown and crispy on top.