Traditional Sage Bread Dressing

Growing up, I was ever amazed at how my mother could turn a bowl full of bread chunks that had been sitting on our little countertop for days into one of my favorite Thanksgiving side dishes.  As I got older I found myself asking her many times for a recipe, but would always get the same, "Oh honey, I don't ever use a recipe for this. I just throw in a few things like my mom would.  Sometimes it turns out and sometimes it doesn't."  For the record I don't ever remember it not turning out.
Of course, if I have a question I want an answer, so I would just watch her so that someday I could try to recreate that popular side dish.
By the time my Handsome Man and I had our own home and family, I was throwing together homemade stuffing just like my mom and my grandma did.  But I found that my mother was right! (Weird, huh?? That's really NOT just some saying.)  I didn't have a recipe to go off of and my dressing would sometimes taste phenomenal and other times tasted a bit bland. I started to write down exactly what I did each time I made stuffing so that eventually I would have the PERFECT recipe.  You guys... I got it.  This totally from scratch, home made sage bread dressing will leave your family & friends completely impressed and you will never go back to bag of seasoned croutons or box dressing again.  Ever. Trust me. I mean, look at that!

The hardest part of this recipe is planning ahead.  You have to know a few days in advance that your going to make this so your bread can dry out.  You will need about 15 slices of bread and you'll want to either lay them out single file on your countertop for a few days to dry out or you'll want to tear the bread into chunks, throw them in a bowl on the counter for a few days, but be sure to toss them around a few times so the ones at the bottom dry out as well.  I use whatever bread I have in the breadbox or I use what I have in the freezer.  (I always take the bread "butts" and the pieces close to the end pieces and throw them in the freezer to use in my dressing when I need them.)
Now that you have your bread all dried out, you can follow this easy recipe:

Traditional Sage Bread Dressing

*15 slices of bread, dried

*one stick of butter

*one cup of chicken broth + 1-1.5 cups more

*3 celery stalks, fine chop

*one medium size onion, fine chop

*one tsp dried thyme

*1.5 tsp salt

*1/4 tsp pepper

*2 Tbls dried sage

*pinch of garlic salt

*pinch of poultry seasoning

Preheat oven to 350. (or just throw in with your turkey or chicken in a separate dish)

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat up the butter and chicken broth.  Add your finely chopped veggies and simmer for about 15 minutes until the veggies are nice and tender.  Add all your seasonings to the saucepan and them pour into a big bowl over the dried bread chunks.  Mix well.  Gradually add more chicken broth until your dressing is moistened.  (you DO NOT want to drench it.  Yes, I know the word "moist" is the ickiest but I couldn't come up with another word to describe it. Sorry!)  You want to mix everything up but don't over stir or add to much broth or it becomes a ball of gunk. Not ok.  Add enough broth to make it moist (sorry, again!) but to still

 keep the bread  "chunky."

Spoon the dressing into an oven safe dish and bake uncovered for about 30-35 minutes. 

I'm pretty confident this will become your fav side dish for your Thanksgiving dinner! Please keep checking the blog for more recipes to make your Thanksgiving day easy peasy and amazingly delicious!

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