The BEST Thanksgiving Dressing

I don’t know about you, but there’s always so much tradition about the menu for Thanksgiving meals. No other meat but turkey is presented. Thanksgiving ALWAYS includes what southerners refer to as DRESSING, not stuffing…and it’s usually your family recipe that has to be created. Well, I think I have converted EVERYONE to a new version of the BEST Thanksgiving dressing that was not the original family one.

Who knew?

Mary Ginna’s Dressing changed everything.

I mean everything. We used to argue about which recipe of Thanksgiving dressing to prepare–my mother’s or my mother in laws? My friend, Mary Ginna, ended all arguments.

NO ONE wants any other dressing made without her secret ingredient. Do you have a clue what’s in her recipe?

Wait for it…Sister Schubert rolls.

Yep!

The secret to the perfect dressing if you are southern or stuffing if you prefer that name.

No more homemade biscuits to make–just a baked pan of Sister Schubert Parker house rolls added to the cornbread and other ingredients.

Memories and tradition are hard to break…right?

Now…if you are like me…you have memories of making the hallowed “dressing” or “stuffing” with the matriarch of the family whose recipe you dared not change one bit.

I have memories of making that infamous dressing with my mother. Days before Thanksgiving, the cornbread and homemade biscuits (not canned) were made and then set aside to “dry out”. That was an important step.

The SAME crock was used each year to mix the batch large enough to feed our family.

On Thanksgiving Day, that Thanksgiving dressing would begin with breaking down the cornbread and biscuits to the right fineness and seasoning them with salt, pepper, sage and celery salt.

Next, the onion and celery were chopped and sautéed in butter and added into the bread.

Boiled eggs were then peeled, chopped and added in.

The last step was adding in the broth from the turkey and perhaps adding a little chicken broth, if needed, to get it to a wet consistency.

It was then baked in the oven until brown.

The perfect Thanksgiving dressing was complete served with giblet gravy.

That’s a WHOLE other subject!

TRUST ME! I’m trying to get this out to you in time to change your recipe, because you will be THE COOK to pass on the “trusted favorite family dressing recipe”!

Who doesn’t want that notoriety? The one to pass on a legacy? I’ll be happy to be the one to pass it on to you today.

I have still honored tradition by including most of the rest of my mother’s recipe. The main change is deleting those biscuits and boiled eggs, and adding in the cream of chicken soup and raw egg with those Sister Schubert rolls.

So here we go:

I am making my bread today a few days early and then will mix it all up on Wednesday to make baking on Thursday a breeze.

I’d love to know what kind of dressing or stuffing you are making for Thanksgiving?

Do you crave dressing or stuffing any other time of the year?

Or is dressing only for Thanksgiving? or Christmas?

Honestly, this version has us making it more during the winter months–especially when there are more feet under my table to enjoy it.

And if you need a cranberry relish that’s also a favorite family tradition, here you go!

This is truly the PERFECT Thanksgiving dressing or stuffing, (if you prefer to call it that), that has now replaced the “Mother, grandmother, mother-in-law” versions that we would never dare vary from in the past.

It’s funny, but my husband and I BOTH have siblings that have moved to this version. We are all spoiled, I tell you!

Hope you love it! Thank Mary Ginna if you know her. All credit for the secret ingredient goes to her for the inspiration.

I’d love to know what “secret ingredient” your dressing/stuffing holds. Please share them in the comments.

If you have leftover turkey, this recipe is perfect…and if you don’t have time to get the mix in for Thanksgiving turkey, just substitute rotisserie chicken when you get it in! Trust me, you will want to keep it in your pantry!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

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Plus, Thanksgiving items are at a savings now…my favorite time to shop!