My mother has been making this recipe for turkey stuffing for our Thanksgiving dinners for over 40 years. Now, I cannot say any more than that without giving away my mom’s age and I know she would not like that. But I can say that my mom and dad have been married for over 40 years and I believe she learned this recipe from her mother and has always used it at our family Thanksgiving dinners, and still does to this day.
I’ve never tasted any turkey stuffing as good as my mom’s and I love stuffing! Mom’s stuffing is made outside of the turkey, and she told me as a little girl that it is better to base this recipe on it being cooked separately. You can use this stuffing to go along with chicken, duck and goose, too. Although a lot of traditional stuffing recipes were made for putting inside the turkey before cooking it, we now know that stuffing outside of the turkey actually helps the turkey cook faster and more evenly if it does not have stuffing inside it. But my mom has always felt that it was safer and kept better if not cooked inside the turkey.
Ingredients
- 1 loaf of day old French bread, (or italitan or sourdough – use what you like!) Cut the bread into 3/4-inch cubes so you have about 10-12 cups.
- 1 cup walnut halves (not pieces)
- 2 cups chopped onion
- 2 cups chopped celery
- 6 Tbsp butter, divided
- 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, chopped into tidbit sized pieces
- 3/4 cup raisins
- Several (5 to 10) chopped large green olives (with pimento)
- Stock from the turkey giblets (1 cup to 2 cups) (can substitute chicken stock)
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
- 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning (or ground sage, if you prefer)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Cooking Directions
Make the stock. To make the turkey stock, you put the turkey giblets – heart and gizzards – in a small saucepan, cover with water and add a little salt. Simmer on very low heat for about an hour, uncovered. Then, strain the stock into a small bowl for use in the stuffing. If you don’t want to use turkey stock, you can use chicken stock bought at the store or even just plain water.
Toast the Walnuts. To toast the walnuts, heat them in a frying pan on medium high heat for a few minutes, stirring until they are slightly browned (not burnt!). Let the walnuts cool while you toast the bread, then chop them into small pieces (not too fine – you want to see the nuts in the finished stuffing).
Prepare the bread crumbs. The bread should French or Italian bread for the texture and it should be a little dry or you end up with mushy stuffing. Heat a large sauté pan on medium heat and melt 3 Tbsp of the butter in the pan. Add the bread cubes, and stir to coat the bread pieces with the melted butter. Then let them toast – only turn them when they have become a little browned on a side. Takes about 10 minutes altogether.
Mix the stuffing ingredients together. In a large Dutch oven, melt 3 Tbsp of butter and sauté chopped onions and celery on medium high heat until cooked through, about 5-10 minutes. Add the bread, then add the cooked chopped walnuts. Add the chopped green apple, raisins, olives, and parsley. Stir in one cup of the stock, then add the poultry seasoning, salt and pepper.
Cover and turn the heat to low. Cook for about an hour until the apples are thoroughly cooked. Check every 10 minutes or so, adding stock while cooking if needed to keep the stuffing moist and to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Serves 8 to 10 adults (depending on how many like stuffing).
Note: There is an alternate version of this recipe on a web site called Simply Recipes that was brought to my attention. It’s probably just as good, but I have not tried it. I suspect that since someone else has a recipe very close to my mom’s that it might have been in an old cookbook or magazine from back in the day. No matter where it came from originally, if you like stuffing as much as I do, try this one next time you have turkey or a baked chicken. If you have any new ingredient suggestions or slight changes to the recipe that you like, let me know!