This stuffing is not for the birds.
I never recommend cooking the stuffing inside the turkey cavity. Instead, make it and cook it separately. That way, you’ll avoid problems with cooking the bird and won’t have to worry about contaminating the stuffing.
This recipe has its roots in African-American life. I found it in the “Black Family Reunion Cookbook,” one of the cookbooks I often refer to when looking to make something different and authentic.
It’s not hard to make, but it’s not as easy as one might think, especially after reading the recipe and finding out you can use canned corn and store-bought cornbread. Making stuffing is an art. After you mix it up, you have to continuously taste it and make adjustments until you get the flavor and consistency just the way you want it.
I found the original recipe to be a little too dry, so I decreased the amount of toasted breadcrumbs and added about a quarter cup of the bacon grease. The bacon I used was pretty lean so it didn’t create too much grease.
Once you mix it up, if you still think it’s too dry, try adding some boiling water: just enough to get the moist consistency you want.
You can serve it as is or if you want to heat it up, try baking it in a 350 degree oven with a few tabs of butter on top. But be careful. I wouldn’t heat it up for more than five or ten minutes or you risk drying it out.
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Triple Cornbread Stuffing
Once you mix this up, continuously taste it for moistness and flavor and make adjustments until it's just right.
Ingredients
- Bacon, 1/2 pound (about 8-10 slices), reserve about 1/4 cup of the cooking grease
- Celery, chopped, 1 1/2 cups
- Onion, chopped, 1/2 cup
- Cornbread crumbs, 4 cups (make or buy cornbread and crumble it into coarse crumbs)
- Toasted bread crumbs, 2 cups (you can spread regular breadcrumbs on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about five minutes, but watch it so it doesn't burn)
- Poultry seasoning, 2 teaspoons
- Salt, 1/2-1 teaspoon or to taste
- Cream-style corn, one 17 oz can
- Whole kernal corn, one 17 oz can, reserve the liquid
Directions
- Step 1 Fry bacon in a skillet until crisp. Crumble it and set it aside. Save 1/2 cup of the drippings to cook the celery and onion in.
- Step 2 Fry the celery and onion in the bacon grease until tender but not brown.
- Step 3 Put the bacon in a large bowl along with the celery and onion. Add everything else: the cornbread crumbs, breadcrumbs, poultry seasoning, salt, and both cans of corn. Also add bacon drippings and some or all of the liquid that came with the whole kernel corn.
- Step 4 Mix it up good until combined well. If the stuffing isn’t moist enough, add just enough boiling water to get the consistency you want.
- Step 5 You can serve it as is. Or if you want to heat it up, put it in a baking dish and dot the top with small pads of butter. Bake at 350 for no more than 5 or 10 minutes. Be careful you don’t dry it out.
