Herby and delicious, this Simple Is Best Stuffing from Bon Appetit puts all other Thanksgiving stuffing recipes to shame. Make it for your friends and family and blow them away with the depth of flavor.
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I’ve been making this stuffing for several years now, and I put it up on the blog last year as one of my very first recipes. Even though it’s only been a year, it was one of my most popular recipes and since the pictures were NOT what I wanted them to be, I decided to take another crack at it this year.
I love this stuffing so much, I can’t even explain it. It’s very simple to make, and is essentially a savory bread pudding. You mix the bread with the herbs and then give it a toss with chicken stock and eggs, and then bake for 90 minutes. There is so much flavor that comes from the multitude of fresh herbs in the dish. They’re all easy to find herbs – no searching around at multiple stores for a bunch of different fancy herbs that you’ll only use one time.
If you're looking for some other delicious side dish options, check out Roasted Delicata Squash with Red Onion, Buttermilk Chive Mashed Potatoes, or Chipotle Cheddar Cornbread. All of them would work perfectly on your thanksgiving table!
Recipe Notes
Flavor: As I mentioned above, this is a SUPER herbaceous dish. You want to use fresh herbs here – dried herbs just wont do it justice. The flavor is simple but outstanding. And the smell while you’re mixing it all together is just out of this world.
Texture: Once baked, this is like a savory bread pudding. The top of the stuffing gets all crusty and crunchy, but the insides are smooth and creamy and delicious.
Ease: There are several steps to this dish, but they’re all simple. If you think ahead, you can stale up your bread on its own, rather than doing the first bread drying step.
Ingredient List
- Butter
- Bread
- Yellow Onion
- Celery
- Flat leaf parsley
- Fresh Sage
- Fresh Rosemary
- Fresh Thyme
- Salt and Pepper
- Chicken Broth
- Eggs
Tips and Tricks
- Make sure you don’t skip the bread drying phase – if your bread hasn’t already sat out for a day or two, the bread drying phase is crucial for the stuffing to soak up the chicken stock/egg mixture.
- You can use vegetable stock to keep this vegetarian friendly.
- Because of how this bakes as a sort of bread pudding the cold leftovers slice REALLY well for leftover Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches.
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Can I make this ahead of time?
Absolutely! You’ll start with the first 9 steps, and then put it in the fridge overnight, and take it out when you’re ready to start baking it. From the fridge, it’ll need 50-60 minutes in the oven.
How do I store the leftovers:
Store any leftovers in the fridge in an airtight container for up to three days.
What if I cant find some of the herbs?
The main herbs used in this dish are all readily available at most grocery stores. If you can’t find one of them, most stores usually sell a “poultry mix”. You can use that instead. I would not use dried herbs here. The specialness of this dish comes from the fresh herbs, and you really don’t want to mess with that. I will say that if you can’t find flat leaf parsley, feel free to use curly parsley instead.
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Bon Appetit Simple Is Best Stuffing
Ingredients
- ¾ of a cup of unsalted butter 1 ½ sticks, plus extra for greasing the baking pan
- 1 pound good quality day old white bread torn into 1 inch pieces.
- 2 ½ cups chopped yellow onion about 1 very large onion, 2 medium onions
- 1 ½ cups celery sliced ¼ inch thin
- ½ cup chopped fresh parsley
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
- 2 ½ cups chicken broth
- 2 large eggs
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 250. Lay the torn bread out on a baking sheet and bake for 45-60 minutes or until bread is dried out. Transfer to a large bowl to cool.
- Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onions and celery and cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes until softened and just beginning to color.
- Add the onion mixture to the dried bread.
- Add the herbs, salt and pepper, and 1 ¼ cups of the chicken broth into the bread mixture and stir to combine. (this should smell AMAZING).
- Let that cool for about 10 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350.
- In a bowl or measuring cup, add the eggs to the remaining chicken broth and whisk together. Fold that into the bread.
- Grease a 9x13 baking dish with butter, and add the stuffing to the pan.
- Cover with foil, and bake for 40 minutes.
- At this point, you can remove it to the fridge. When you're ready to finish it, just remove the foil and bake for 50-60 minutes at 350.
- Remove the foil, and bake for an additional 40 minutes.
hello sarah,
i have a question about amt of time dressing is in oven. if you want to follow the directions up to 9th step, ive added up the amt of time this dish is in oven … its between 130 to 140 min at the top end almost which is almost 2-1/2 hrs. ive never had to bake my stuffing that long. in the past, ive ususlly had to bake it around 1:15 - 1:20 min tops. it seems the amt of time called for in this recipe would leave stuffing too dry. does the amt of time have something to do with the fact that dish would be coming out of frig next day and you are needing more time to get it up to temp in oven? even if that’s the case, it still seems like a long time. and if you do bake it same day do you adjust the time? thanks
Hi Toni! Sorry about the confusion here - the very first baking step that lists 45-60 minutes is solely for drying out the bread. That step can be skipped if you let the bread dry naturally. Once the stuffing is fully made, you have the first bake of 40 minutes with the foil on, then the second bake of 40 minutes with the foil off, so it's only an hour and 20 minutes of baking. If you're going to do the 2nd bake after letting the stuffing sit in the fridge overnight, then you'd want the second bake to be about 50-60 minutes, so maybe an hour and 40 minutes total tops. Hope that clears it up! And I hope you make and love the stuffing as much as my family does!