Homemade sausage stuffing is a family favorite side dish that can be assembled in advance. It’s easy to make with white sandwich bread, ground sausage, fresh sage, and poultry seasoning. Cook it in a casserole dish or stuff inside your holiday turkey!
GET THE THANKSGIVING PREP GUIDE: Get your FREE Thanksgiving plan, timeline, recipe and menu inspiration, plus all the tips & tricks you need to pull off the best Thanksgiving yet. AND! FREE printable.
An Old-Fashioned Stuffing Recipe That Anyone Can Master
This sage and sausage stuffing is the meaty cousin of my favorite no-frills Thanksgiving stuffing.
It’s an easy recipe that starts by toasting soft slices of white sandwich bread until they’re good and dry. The bread is then tossed with juicy ground sausage, fragrant aromatics like sage and celery, and chicken broth for some much needed moisture.
The comforting flavors of this sausage stuffing are the perfect match for holiday favorites like roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce. (Bonus: you can use leftovers to stuff some acorn squash!)
Enjoy!
Heidi’s Tips for Recipe Success
Blend fresh and dried aromatics for a deeper flavor. Dried herbs are more potent than fresh, and since I always have it in my pantry, dried poultry seasoning has been my aromatic of choice for years. In my recipe testing, I found that an additional sprinkling of fresh sage cuts through the fatty richness of the sausage and adds bold herby flavor to the stuffing. And it adds a little leafy prettiness!
Drain the sausage to prevent greasy stuffing. Ground sausage is fairly high in fat, which makes for an ultra flavorful stuffing. However, you’ll want to drain off the excess grease from the skillet before adding the sausage to the bread cubes to prevent your stuffing from tasting unpleasantly greasy.
Dot with butter to keep moist. Between the sausage, chicken broth, and melted butter, chances are slim that your stuffing is going to dry out. But as added insurance, I like to add a few pats of butter to the top of the stuffing before baking just in case.
The Main Ingredients
The full recipe, with amounts, can be found in the recipe card below.
- Bread — Plain white sandwich bread works great here. You could use something heartier, like sourdough, but the addition of sausage, butter, and sage means that the type of bread you use won’t really matter.
- Sausage — I prefer purchasing ground sausage rather than sausage links. That way there are no casings to remove and I can just dump the sausage into the skillet.
- Aromatics — Dried poultry seasoning does most of the heavy lifting, with finely chopped celery and yellow onion providing extra layers of flavor. I also prefer making my ground sausage stuffing with fresh sage for even more herby flavor.
- Butter — Adds so much flavor and richness. If you use salted butter, you might not need the full amount of kosher salt when seasoning the stuffing.
- Broth — Chicken broth or turkey stock may be used. Don’t sub with water, which won’t season the stuffing like broth does.
Recipe Variations
- Chop up 1 to 2 medium apples and cook alongside the sausage.
- Stir in ¾ to 1 cup of dried cranberries before baking.
- Add chopped or sliced mushrooms and cook with the onion and celery.
- Add up to 1 cup of toasted pecans or cooked and chopped chestnuts before baking.
How to Make Sausage Stuffing
- Cube and toast the bread. You can either slice the sandwich bread into cubes or tear it apart with your fingers for a more rustic look. Spread the bread cubes over a baking sheet in an even layer and toast at 300ºF for 30 minutes.
Heidi’s Tip: Don’t crank up the oven temperature to get the bread to toast faster. You want the bread cubes to dry out and become crunchy without developing too much color.
- Brown the sausage. Add the chopped sage at this point so it has time to really perfume the meat with its earthy flavor.
- Cook the aromatics. I like to use the same skillet I cooked the sausage in so the celery and onion can start soaking up all that savory flavor.
Heidi’s Tip: You want the aromatics to soften but not turn too deeply golden brown. Keep the burner set to medium heat and just be patient.
- Mix it all together. Add the cooked aromatics to the bread cubes and sausage, then season with poultry seasoning.
- Moisten with chicken broth. Be very gentle when tossing the ingredients together; you want the bread cubes to be coated evenly in broth and aromatics, but you don’t want to squish them.
- Lock in moisture before baking. After turning the stuffing mixture into a 9×13 casserole dish, I like to drizzle a little more broth over top and add a few dots of butter before covering with foil.
- Bake. Sage sausage stuffing needs to bake for 40 minutes covered, then for an additional 10ish minutes uncovered so the top can brown and slightly crisp up.
Make-Ahead Tips
You can prep this easy homemade stuffing the night before, cover it tightly with foil, and then bake off the next day as instructed. Wait to dot with butter and drizzle with the final ¼ cup of broth until you’re ready to bake.
You might also need to add an extra 5 to 10 minutes to the total bake time, depending on how cold the assembled stuffing is when you put it into the oven.
If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating below, leave a comment to tell us what you think, and tag me on Instagram @foodiecrush.
Sausage Stuffing Recipe
Ingredients
- 10 cups cubed white sandwich bread
- 12 ounces ground sausage
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
- 10 tablespoons butter, divided (⅓ tablespoon for preparing the baking dish and 1 ½ tablespoon reserved for dotting on top)
- 2 cups celery, diced (about 4-5 ribs)
- 2 cups yellow onion, diced (1 large)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons dried poultry seasoning, or more to taste
- 1 ½ cups chicken broth, or turkey broth
Instructions
- Toast the bread cubes. Preheat oven to 300°F. Place 10 cups cubed white bread on a baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes or until the bread cubes are dry and crumbly to the touch. Cool and transfer to a large bowl.
- Cook the sausage. In a large skillet over medium-high, cook 12 ounces sausage and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage until the sausage is browned and no longer pink in the middle, 8-10 minutes. Drain off any fat and add to the bowl with the bread cubes.
- Sauté the aromatics. In the same skillet, melt 8 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat. Add 2 cups diced onion and 2 cups diced celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 6-7 minutes. Season with ½ teaspoon kosher salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper, then add to the bowl with the bread cubes and sausage. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons poultry seasoning.
- Add the chicken broth and mix. Drizzle with 1 ½ cups chicken broth. Gently toss until the ingredients are mixed well. Add more chicken broth as needed.
- To bake outside the bird: Prepare a 9×13-inch baking dish with ½ tablespoon of the reserved butter and spoon the stuffing in the dish. Drizzle with an additional ¼ cup of chicken broth and dot with the remaining 1 ½ tablespoons of butter to keep moist. Cover with foil, and bake at 400°F for 20-25 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.
- To bake inside the bird: Spoon 3-5 cups of the stuffing into the bird's cavity, stuffing it loosely but not overfilling, then follow your bird's cooking directions. Be sure the internal temperature of the stuffing comes to 165°F on an instant read meat or food thermometer before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
FAQs
Since we’re doctoring up this homemade stuffing with ground sausage, fragrant aromatics, and lots of butter, the type of bread you use won’t make or break this holiday side dish.
I’ve been making my stuffings with plain white sandwich bread for years, and it always gets gobbled up fast.
If you don’t want to cube and toast your own bread cubes, buy a bag of dried bread cubes from the bakery section of your local grocery store instead.
Go for it! Ground Italian sausage is more strongly seasoned than plain ground sausage and has notes of fennel and garlic. But if you have Italian sausage on hand, feel free to use it.
No, using fresh bread cubes in this recipe would result in mushy, soggy stuffing. The bread cubes need to be nice and dry before being tossed with the melted butter and broth to create that signature soft-yet-firm stuffing consistency.
Main Dishes to Serve with This Stuffing
More Easy Thanksgiving Sides
We send good emails. Subscribe to FoodieCrush and have each post plus exclusive content only for our subscribers delivered straight to your e-mail box.
Follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for more FoodieCrush inspiration.
As always, thank you for reading and supporting companies I partner with, which allows me to create more unique content and recipes for you. There may be affiliate links in this post of which I receive a small commission. All opinions are always my own.
Jane
300 degrees was too high for the bread cubes! After only 20 mins, I checked them and they were browned beyond usability! Good thing I bought an extra loaf of bread today; I’ll try again tomorrow – at 200 degrees!
Sorry it was too long for you Jane. Ovens can all be different, and if your cubes are smaller, they will cook quicker. I hope the second round works better for you!