Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing with Garlic & Herbs

This simple Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing recipe has traditional but sensational Thanksgiving flavors perfect for your Holiday meal!

Homemade dressing is one of my favorite dishes to put on my Thanksgiving table.  As a result, I rarely make the same one twice, until I started making this cornbread dressing recipe.  It’s moist, delicious, and easy to make. Plus, you can make it ahead (even freeze it months ahead!) and the brown butter adds a new dimension to the cornbread mixture.  This simple homemade dressing recipe is

Can This Cornbread Dressing Recipe Be Made Ahead?

Yes! This Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing is a great side dish to make ahead of Thanksgiving! For the best flavor possible, try to coordinate your herbs with the ones you’ll be using during your feast. (Tip: whatever extra herbs you have leftover, stuff into the cavity of your turkey!).  

How to Make this Cornbread Dressing Recipe Ahead:  

If you want to completely make this Thanksgiving dressing ahead, cook it as directed and then let it cool.  Cover it and refrigerate for up to 2 days. When you are ready to reheat, cover it with an oven safe lid (aluminum foil works great) and reheat at 375°F to 20-30 minutes, or until hot throughout.

The type of baking dish you choose to bake your dressing in can change your cooking time.  The shallower the dish the less time it may take.

Can Homemade Dressing Be Frozen?

The long and short of it is yes, homemade dressing can be frozen, but it can be tricky.  To keep your cornbread dressing moist and delicious, add an extra cup of chicken stock (or chicken broth) to your cornbread mixture and bake it until the center has only just stopped jiggling.  The extra moisture from the additional liquid will help make up for the drying out that freezing homemade dressing can do.

Once you are ready to cook your Thanksgiving dressing, you’ll have best success if you thaw it out first (it usually takes 2 days), then bake according the instructions.  

Tips For How To Make Cornbread Dressing

To really rock today’s Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing with Garlic & Herbs, you can brush up on these skills and techniques:

• How To Make Stock.  This is part one of an incredibly in depth 5-part series on how to make stock.  It has EVERYTHING you could ever want to know, including recipes for making your own.
• Different Types of Cornmeal.  This outlines the different types of cornmeal, including the color, grind, and size of each and when to use what.
• How To Buy & Store Herbs.  If you’re going to be investing the money in excellent quality fresh herbs that are (most likely) out of season, then you should know what to look for.  Plus, tips for keeping them fresh until Thanksgiving!
• How To Buy & Store Eggs.  Learn the grocery store lingo so you know exactly what you’re buying.  Learn how to navigate the tricky phrasing and buy just what you need!
• Understanding Flour.  This one explains everything you need to know about different kinds of flour and how to choose the right one for the job!

How Much Cornbread Dressing Per Person?

If you’re trying to figure out how much of this cornbread dressing recipe to put on your Thanksgiving table, estimate for roughly ½ cup per person (including kids).  This is usually a safe estimate considering the number of side dishes usually available, but if you’re limiting the number of starches you’re serving this year, you may want to consider ¾ cup per person.  

What To Eat With This Brown Butter Cornbread Stuffing Recipe

The great thing about this homemade dressing is that it has almost exclusively traditional flavors, which makes it easy to pair with most Thanksgiving recipes.  If you’re looking to round out you Thanksgiving table, these are some of my most popular Holiday recipes!

Holiday Side Dishes:

• Creamy Macaroni & Cheese with Butternut Squash.
• Cinnamon Roasted Beets.
• Easy Roasted Parsnips with Thyme.
• Haricots Verts (French Green Beans) with Tarragon and Orange.
• Apple + Olive Oil Bread.

Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing with Garlic & Herbs

I love this Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing because the cornmeal and brown butter gives it an appropriately toasty and autumnal flavor.  If you want to make things super fun, you can always use blue cornmeal!

Want a free printable grocery list for this Brown Butter Cornbread Stuffing recipe?  Get it HERE.

Use this grocery list to help simplify shopping.  Everything is listed in standard grocery store amounts.  If no size is specified, even the smallest package will provide more than enough.

Happy Cooking 🙂

Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing with Garlic & Herbs

This simple Brown Butter Cornbread Dressing recipe has traditional but sensational Thanksgiving flavors perfect for your Holiday meal!

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

12 servings

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Drying Time: 8 hours

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

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Ingredients

Cornbread

• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 4 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 stick of unsalted butter + extra for pan

Stuffing

• 4 tablespoons butter
• 6 ribs of celery, diced small
• 1 large sweet yellow onion, diced small
• 10 cloves of garlic, pressed (or minced)
• 3 cups chicken stock
• 1/3 cup minced herbs - whatever mix you like, (I like to do the Simon & Garfunkel Mix - parsley, sage, rosemary, & thyme)
• salt & pepper, to taste

Instructions

Preheat

• Preheat oven to 350°F.

Brown Butter

• In a small sauté pan, melt the butter until all the milk solids have browned and it is no longer popping or simmering. Set aside.

Cornbread

• Lightly grease a 9x13" baking dish with butter and set aside.
• Whisk all the ingredients together in a large bowl and transfer to the buttered baking dish. Let rest for 5 Minutes.
• Bake for 45 Minutes or until the cornbread is cooked all the way through and is golden brown on top.
• Let cool for 1 Hour and then cut it into small pieces and let it dry out at least overnight on a sheet pan.

Stuffing

• In a sauté pan, brown the 4 Tablespoons of butter like before.
• Add in the onions and celery and cook for 10 Minutes, or until onions are translucent and celery is bright green. Stir in the garlic and cook for another 1 Minute.
• Put the dried out cornbread into a large bowl, and mix in the celery and onions mixture and the minced herbs. Stir until combined.
• Mix in the chicken stock, 1/2 cup at a time, until the cornbread it completely saturated and becomes stuck together and clumpy. You may not use all three cups, depending on how dry your cornbread is. Season with salt and pepper.
• Put the stuffing into the 9x13" dish and bake for 30 Minutes or until the center is no longer jiggly. Serve.

Notes

The more air exposure you can give the cut up cornbread, the faster and better it will dry out. This cornbread recipe is designed to be dry and crumbly. If you would like to make it without turning it into stuffing, try adding an additional 3/4 cup of buttermilk

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 320kcal | Carbohydrates: 37g | Protein: 8g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 76mg | Sodium: 555mg | Potassium: 723mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 13.8% | Vitamin C: 6.1% | Calcium: 24.3% | Iron: 12.1%

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