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This Make Ahead Stuffing is based on my favorite (and wildly popular) bread stuffing recipe. It’s a great way to get a jump-start on the holiday!
This Thanksgiving stuffing recipe is my mom’s creation and my favorite part about Thanksgiving. Add in the advantages of make-ahead convenience and you’re officially out of excuses not to make it!
And if you love getting ahead of the game (Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of the food world, after all), check out my full Make Ahead Thanksgiving menu: Make Ahead Roasted Turkey, Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes (they won’t get watery in the freezer), and Make Ahead Pumpkin Pie.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Chicken broth: I keep jars of homemade chicken broth in the freezer (it’s a delicious by-product of poaching a chicken), but store-bought is also good. Or use turkey broth if you have that.
- Herbs: Fresh herbs taste the best in this stuffing, but dried work too. I rarely find fresh marjoram and almost always substitute dried. Or, customize with your favorite herbs like rosemary or poultry seasoning.
- French bread: Use any sturdy bread such as Italian, challah, or sourdough bread. Dry the bread up to 3 days in advance (keep it covered with a dry kitchen towel on counter, or slice and dry in a 300-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes).
Step-by-step instructions
- Coat a 9″ by 13″ baking dish with butter. In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt butter until foaming. Add onion and celery and sauté until translucent, about 7 to 8 minutes.
- Meanwhile, whisk eggs in large bowl. Stir in broth, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper.
- To skillet, add parsley, sage, thyme, and marjoram and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer the vegetables to the bowl with eggs mixture and stir well. Add bread cubes and toss to combine. Transfer to buttered casserole dish and cover with foil. Freeze until ready to bake.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Keep stuffing tightly covered with foil and bake until mostly heated through, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until crispy edges form, about 10 to 20 minutes longer.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe will serve at least 10 as a side dish.
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
- Freezer: For best results, assemble and freeze the bread stuffing uncooked. Bake from frozen as directed in the recipe.
- Classic stuffing recipe: To make my homemade Bread Stuffing recipe, preheat oven to 400 degrees and rub a 9×13 inch baking dish with butter. Add stuffing to the baking dish, cover tightly with foil, and bake until mostly heated through, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until crispy edges form, about 10 to 20 minutes longer.
- Crockpot stuffing: Save your oven space and make bread stuffing in your slow cooker. You’ll still have soft, chewy bread cubes with plenty of crispy edges without using your oven.
- Gluten-free stuffing: transforms gluten-free bread into a side dish worth making. You’d never know the difference when you tuck into this glorious gluten-free bread stuffing.
- Small batch: My Bread Stuffing for Two is the same delicious, buttery stuffing with all your favorite flavors, but scaled down to a smaller quantity for small gatherings. See my full Thanksgiving for Two Menu which includes a pair of roasted Cornish Hens with Stuffing and two Mini Pumpkin Pies for dessert.
- Sausage stuffing: My homemade Cornbread Dressing is made with plenty of sausage for a spicy kick.
- Vegan stuffing: Filled with wild mushrooms, leeks, fresh kale, and all the classic Thanksgiving herbs you love, this Vegan Stuffing recipe has bread cubes that are soft and chewy on the inside with browned, crispy edges outside. The entire recipe is 100% vegan and delicious.
- More Thanksgiving side dishes: Round out your Thanksgiving dinner with Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry Sauce, Soft Yeast Dinner Rolls, and Vegetable Casserole.
Frequently Asked Questions
The best bread for stuffing is a sturdy loaf with a tight crumb. Bakery French bread, Italian bread, Challah, and Sourdough are all good choices. When you cut up a 1-pound loaf into cubes, it should fit in an even layer on a single half-size rimmed baking sheet. If you need 2 sheet trays to fit your pound of bread cubes, the bread is too soft an airy. It won’t make good stuffing and you’ll wind up with a dish full of mush, no matter how well you dry it out.
Dry the bread up to 3 days in advance (keep it covered with a dry kitchen towel on counter, or slice and dry in a 300-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes).
Yes! I’ve tested this homemade stuffing recipe in a 9-inch by 13-inch aluminum foil pan.
For food safety reasons, and for a more evenly cooked bird, most modern recipes don’t encourage stuffing a turkey. If you decide to stuff your turkey, combine wet and dry stuffing components just before placing them in the cavity, ensuring any raw meat, poultry, or seafood used in the stuffing is fully cooked beforehand. Do not stuff a bird with cooked stuffing. Use a large spoon or your hands to loosely stuff the body and neck cavities (do not pack it tightly because the stuffing expands while it cooks). Truss the main cavity with trussing pins to keep the stuffing inside. The stuffing must register 165 degrees on an internal thermometer to be safe to eat. For more information, see the USDA website. Stuffing a chicken or Cornish hens is also discouraged.
More Thanksgiving recipes
Vegetable Recipes
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
Casserole Recipes
Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe with Marshmallows
Side Dish Recipes
Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole
Bread Recipes
Homemade Crescent Rolls
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Make Ahead Stuffing
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter plus more for buttering baking dish (1 stick)
- 1 large yellow onion chopped
- 4 celery ribs sliced lengthwise and chopped
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups chicken broth (see note 1)
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley (see note 2)
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh sage or ½ teaspoon dried
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme or ½ teaspoon dried
- 1 teaspoon minced fresh marjoram or ½ teaspoon dried
- 1 (1-pound) loaf French bread cut into 1/2" cubes and dried overnight on counter (see note 3)
Instructions
- Coat a 9″ by 13″ baking dish with butter. In a large skillet over medium high heat, melt butter until foaming. Add onion and celery and sauté until translucent, about 7 to 8 minutes.
- Meanwhile, whisk eggs in large bowl. Stir in broth, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper.
- To skillet, add parsley, sage, thyme, and marjoram and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Transfer to bowl with eggs and mix well.
- Add bread cubes and toss to combine. Transfer to buttered baking dish and cover with foil. Freeze until ready to bake.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Keep stuffing tightly covered with foil and bake until mostly heated through, about 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake until crispy edges form, about 10 to 20 minutes longer.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Chicken broth: I keep jars of homemade chicken broth in the freezer (it’s a delicious by-product of poaching a chicken), but store-bought is also good. Or use turkey broth if you have that.
- Herbs: Fresh herbs taste the best in this stuffing, but dried work too. I rarely find fresh marjoram and almost always substitute dried.
- French bread: You can also use brioche, challah, or Italian bread. Dry the bread up to 3 days in advance (keep it covered with a dry kitchen towel on counter, or slice and dry in a 300-degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes).
- Yield: This recipe will serve at least 10 as a side dish.
- Storage: Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Looking Delicious! Thank you for sharing this recipe. I’ll definitely make this
Sounds delicious! I’ve never added eggs to my stuffing/dressing, but I’m going to try it this year. I also like grated carrots in my stuffing, maybe it’s more for color than flavor, maybe both. An elderly German lady told my mom to add some leftover mashed potatoes to her stuffing. She also added sausage to hers. I didn’t care for the sausage but the rest of the family loved it.
I’ll add eggs this Thanksgiving rather than mashed potatoes and see which one I prefer. I just don’t want a bread pudding I want stuffing, so I hope I don’t ruin one of my favorite sides!
can I use this night before recipe and put the stuffing in the turkey the next day?
Hi Johanna, for food safety reasons, and for a more evenly cooked turkey, most modern recipes don’t encourage stuffing a turkey with stuffing. I bake it delicious bread stuffing outside the bird. If you decide to stuff your turkey, make sure the stuffing is warm when it goes in so it has a head start in cooking (either because you just finished making it or because you made it in advance and reheated it). Use a large spoon or your hands to loosely stuff the body and neck cavities (do not pack it tightly because the stuffing expands while it cooks). Truss the main cavity with trussing pins to keep the stuffing inside. The stuffing must register 165 degrees on an internal thermometer to be safe to eat. – Meggan
This exceeded expectations. Thank you for the recipe.
Nice recipe post
If I double the recipe, how long should I cook the stuffing for? Does it extend the time? I am putting everything in one large, deep 9×13 cooking plan.
Hi Christine, I’ll make a double batch today and reply back with any info on the baking time (how much to extend). Thanks!
Hi Christine, I tested the double batch today. I was skeptical about it fitting in a deep 9×13, but it did (I have 3.68 quart baking dish that is 9×13, the sides are 2.25 inches tall)! At first it doesn’t look like it will, but once you toss the bread cubes in the broth/egg/vegetable mixture, you’re fine. I mixed everything in an 8-quart bowl with my hands and felt like the cubes may have disintegrated a bit, and once I packed it in the baking dish, it didn’t look as attractive as it normally does with the pretty cubes and all. So I would say, mix it gently and don’t pack it in if you don’t have to! It will naturally cook down a little as it bakes.
As for the cook time, I increased the time for softening the vegetables in butter from 7 minutes to 10 minutes. For the foil-covered leg of baking, 25 minutes was still good. For the uncovered portion of the bake time, 20 minutes was sufficient for my liking (you could do another 5 minutes if you wanted, but the top pieces had brown edges and were crunchy after 20 minutes).
I hope this helps, if you need anything else just let me know! I’ll email this response to you too, just to try to make sure you get it on time. Happy Thanksgiving! -Meggan
Thank you for writing a recipe to cook from. Most are guessing games that typically result in a mismatch between pan size (which is seldom mentioned), the amount of stuffing made and per person portions.
It’s nice to see a recipe written by someone who is first a cook and then a blogger.
When reheating frozen stuffing that was already cooked in advance, do you thaw it first or just go directly from freezer to oven?
Hi Marguerite, you can do either. Obviously you just have to bake it longer if it’s still frozen. My preference is always to thaw things in advance if I have time, but just imagine all the things that come out of a grocery store that are frozen solid. No issues! But I just prefer to bake things from a thawed stage because they bake faster. If you need anything else, just let me know! Thanks. -Meggan
This is a great post. Your Blog the very informative.
I always fry my stuffing and my family loves it like that.Am I the only one who makes it like that?
WHAT!!! I’ve never heard of this, but I absolutely have to try it. Do you just take all the normal stuffing ingredients and fry them in a pan? Like toss it around in a skillet with butter? Sounds divine. I can’t wait to try it. Please tell me more!!! -Meggan
I used to make my stuffing and then make little patties out ot the extra….and fry them in butter….this became a favorite for my boys when childen….they still get excited about “stuffin’ cakes” as they called them.