Are you ready to get stuffed like a turkey with the best gluten free southern cornbread stuffing?
This cornbread stuffing, or as Southerners call it…dressing, is a version of my grandmother’s beloved recipe. The main difference is that my grandmother added a few crumbled biscuits to the mix, which is what I’ve grown up with and devoured every Thanksgiving.
This year I decided to make a stuffing/dressing that was an all cornbread base so that it was gluten free. My brother found out he had a pretty bad wheat allergy a few years ago, so I always make sure there are plenty of GF options for him at Thanksgiving.
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The best way to make stuffing is to make the base ingredients yourself. You certainly can buy pre-made cornbread at the store, but sometimes you can’t control if it’s on the sweeter side. Sweet cornbread in this recipe is a NO-NO✋!
It takes just a few minutes to put the cornbread together and it’s best made at least two days in advance so it can dry out. The cornbread needs to be dry so it can absorb plenty of butter, onions, celery, and broth. You could also make the cornbread up to a month in advance and freeze it. Just be sure to thaw it out two-three days in advance.
HOW TO DRY OUT CORNBREAD FAST
If you are making this stuffing on the day of your gathering, break up the pieces of cornbread and spread on a sheet pan. Place in a 350 degrees oven for 5-7 minutes or until the surface feels dry. Let cool before adding celery, onions, and broth.
Once you are ready to put your stuffing together, start by sautéing butter, onions, celery, fresh sage, rosemary, and parsley on medium heat until softened…mmmm. The aroma is just heavenly!
Now measure 4 and 1/2 cups of cornbread that has been crumbled somewhat or diced into equal sized portions. I prefer to crumble myself, but a dice is nice too. Now add the butter, onion, and celery mixture along with one egg about 4 cups of chicken or turkey broth.
If you have any turkey drippings, now would be a good time to steal some from the turkey pan and add it to the batter!
You want your mixture to look nice and moist as shown below. If you don’t add enough liquid, your stuffing will be sad and dry. If the liquid isn’t absorbing immediately, give it a couple of minutes to absorb the liquid, then add the rest and let it absorb again if needed.
Now add your mixture to a buttered casserole dish and drizzle more melted butter on top to create a nice crispy crust!
Bake at 375 degrees for about 40-45 minutes or until nice and golden brown.
how to host an epic Thanksgiving dinner
Get my guide to being the hostess with the most-ess. See the epic post here. Here’s a sneak peek:
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- Sourdough Garlic Rosemary Rolls
- Epic Duck Fat Roasted Turkey (you’re here!)
- How to Keep Mashed Potatoes Warm (YES you CAN keep them warm and buttery and soft up to 4 hours in advance!)
- Southern Cornbread Stuffing/Dressing
- 15-minute Cranberry Clementine Sauce
- Perfect Pie Crust
- Peach Crostata with Spiced Crumble
- Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust ( Recipe & Video)
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GF Southern Cornbread Stuffing
Ingredients
For the cornbread
- 4 1/2 cups cups cornmeal
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups buttermilk or 2 cups milk plus 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar 480 grams
- 1/2 cup grapeseed or canola oil 54 grams
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp salt 11 grams
For the dressing
- 1 cup celery diced
- 1 cup onions diced
- 1 egg
- 2 Tbsp fresh rosemary finely chopped
- 2 Tbsp fresh sage finely chopped
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley finely chopped
- 1 stick butter plus more for brushing
- 3 to 3 1/2 cups chicken or turkey broth
- 1/2 cup turkey drippings or replace with 1/2 cup more broth if you don't have drippings
- 1 tsp salt
Instructions
For the Cornbread
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients together with a whisk until combined.
- Mix the 4 eggs until combined, then add the buttermilk and oil and stir until incorporated.
- Bake in a greased muffin pan until golden brown about 15 minutes or until the cornbread springs back when pressed.
- The cornbread muffins need to dry out for about 1-2 days for best results. You can make the muffins up to one month in advance and individually wrap them in plastic wrap and place them in the freezer. Make sure to thaw them for 1-2 days to dry out before making the stuffing.
- For the stuffing:
- Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat. Melt the butter and sauté the onions, celery, and fresh herbs until the onions are softened and translucent, about 5-8 minutes.
- Meanwhile, in a large bowl crumble 4 1/2 cups worth of cornbread with your hands or dice the cornbread into equal-sized portions.
- Let the onions, celery, and butter mixture cool a bit, then add to the cornbread.
- Add the salt, egg, then the chicken or turkey broth, and turkey drippings if you are using them. Stir until combined.
- Place in a buttered casserole dish and drizzle more melted butter on top to help form a nice crunchy crust.
- Bake at 375 degrees for about 40-45 minutes or until it's nice and golden brown on top.
Notes
Bon Appetit Ya’ll,
Leslie O.
I have been doing my dressing in the divided brownie pans for several years because we like crispy edges.
Can I make this up in advance and freeze it? Do you recommend freezing it cooked or uncooked. I am cooking for 10 and do most of it myself BECAUSE I WANT TO. I make pecan pies and a mushroom pie and freeze them this week. So I was hoping to do the dressing also this week. i just don’t have the time or the oven space. I already use crook pots to keep potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes warm. I will do one with turkey broth and
one with veggie broth for the vegetarians . I have really good turkey broth from fresh market. Also I do my turkey breast and pork tenderloin on Wed and save the broth. When I warm up the dressing I use the fresh broth.
I would recommend freezing it uncooked and bake it the morning of and set aside. You can reheat it in the oven covered with aluminum foil while the turkey is resting. That’s awesome that you have some great turkey broth, you can’t always find it. Saving the broth from the turkey totally transforms dressing/stuffing. It sounds like you are an entertaining pro! Hopefully I’ll get to see you for the holidays Aunt Paula! xoxox
Back at you!
Also, don’t freeze the uncooked stuffing in a glass casserole dish. The liquid expands and can break your dish!
This looks so good. I pinned!
Thank you Sandra!
Hi this recipe is very helpful!
Did you spray your muffin pan with oil or leave it ungreased? Also to dry out the cornbread did you leave them open on counter for a day or in a Tupperware?
Great questions! Yes, it’s a good idea to put a bit of oil in the muffin tins when you bake your cornbread. To dry out your cornbread you can partially cover the cornbread but leave the lid partially open to help dry out.
If you only have one day to dry them out, you can also break them apart and leave them uncovered on your counter to really speed up the process. Breaking them up would be your best bet to drying them fast.
Can i use this recipe as stuffing and cook it in the bird?
You certainly can use this stuffing inside the bird, however, you won’t get it as crispy if it’s cooked the entire time in the bird. You would want to remove the stuffing from the cavity of the bird when the bird is done and place it in a buttered casserole dish while the bird is resting (turkeys need to rest for 30-45 min before carving). Finish baking the stuffing until it’s crisp on top. Whenever you cook stuffing inside a turkey, part of the stuffing won’t be fully cooked, so don’t skip baking it by itself for food safety reasons.
If you find this to be too tricky, simply spoon out 1/4 to 1/2 cup turkey drippings from the roasting pan and drizzle it on top before baking the stuffing in a casserole dish. This will give it that great turkey flavor.
I usually bake my traditional bread stuffing with turkey wings on top and it’s amazing!
Do you think this could work with this recipe as well? Or you think it may get soggy? 🙂
That sounds delicious! If it doesn’t get crispy on top while baking, remove the wings the last few minutes to get it nice and crisp. Bake until the top is crispy, that way you still get the flavor of the turkey wings. Let me know how it turns out if you make it this way!
Thank you! Yes, the wings give such a nice flavor! Chicken wings work well too. 🙂
I usually take the wings off and crisp up the stuffing for a few minutes. Thanks again. 🙂
I don’t see any gluten free flour in the cornbread recipe. Is it left out by accident, or is this cornbread made only with cornmeal? I’ll be making the recipe for my grandson. I’ll also substitute the eggs for an egg replacer as he is also allergic to eggs. I can’t wait to surprise him with this dish.
Hi Kathy! Great question. This recipe is an all-cornmeal recipe. The eggs are pretty important for binding the cornbread together. What type of egg replacer are you planning on using? The good news is, if the cornbread falls apart a bit, it won’t matter much because you are going to break them up anyway. I ask for mainly for reasons of flavor.
Very interesting and easy, too.. the egg replacer is called ENERG egg replacer, a culinary egg substitute.
I think that egg replacer should work perfectly! I just wanted to make sure you had success with the recipe. Have a beautiful holiday!
Do you use 12 cornbread muffins? I made the recipe and had a lot of batter left over, that I put in a cake pan to bake. Do I use it all to make the stuffing?
It looks like I wrote it in the post, but forgot to add it to the instructions. You add about 4 1/2 cups of crumbled cornbread to the stuffing mix.
It’s no problem if you added it all and divided into a casserole dish and a cake pan because you had extra. If you have already baked it but find it a little dry, simply add a bit more broth and turkey drippings (if you have them) and brush with a bit more butter on top and crisp in the oven right before serving and you should be good to go! Sorry for the confusion!
I can’t remember if I used all 12 of the muffins when I made it last year, but I know I used almost all of the cornbread.
I have the same question as mike I think and I’m not sure I understand your answer. The amount of cornbread batter this makes is way more than 12 cornbread muffins. I have my first 12 in right now so I’ll see how they come out before deciding if I want to use the rest of this batter. It looks like it is going to make 24 muffins.
Thanks for the question Tracy! I don’t think I’ve ever made quite that many muffins with this recipe. I must have really scooped a lot more in the muffin tins to make bigger muffins. I based this recipe off of my skillet cornbread recipe which is only enough for a 9-inch cast iron skillet, so I had to increase the recipe to make enough muffins for 4 1/2 cups of crumbled cornbread.
Because I can’t quite recall how many muffins equaled 4 1/2 cups (the last time I made this), I’m unsure how much would be left over. The difference is most likely in how much batter you scoop for your muffin tins. I scooped enough batter for it to be level with each muffin tin.
It may just be that your muffins will be smaller, but you’ll have the same amount leftover in any case. Just measure 4 1/2 cups of crumbled cornbread (I did mine in a large glass measuring cup) and you should be good.
You can certainly cool, cover with plastic wrap, and freeze the extra muffins. Or if you want to make more stuffing and place it in a cake or brownie pan you can saute a bit more celery and onions with butter (maybe 1/2 stalk celery with 1/4 cup more onion and 2-3 TBSP butter) and add about 1/2-1 cup more broth to the mix.
This recipe is flexible in that you want to your dressing mix pretty wet, so you can adjust your seasonings and broth amount based on how much you want to make or how dry your cornbread is to begin with. The drier it is, the more moisture it will absorb, so sometimes you have to adjust the amount of broth a bit.
The great news is, as long as your dressing is pretty wet and seasoned well it will turn out nicely. The BIG key I have found with dressing is to make sure to brush the top with butter and to bake it long enough for the top to become crisp and. This will ensure great texture in your dressing. Let me know if you have any more questions!
I just sent you a quick email (from leslie@bessiebakes.com) if you have any additional questions. Thanks!
I got the 4 1/2 cup thing now, I found it in the post as well. It’s just a different kind of stuffing. It’s also wetter then bread stuffing. I have always got the box cornbread stuffing. I’m quite sure this will be way better! I did only use two tsp of salt in the cornbread. Three just seemed like to much to me. Looking forward to it! Thanks for your help! Happy cooking and Happy Thanksgiving!
The salt adjustment should be no problem. In the end, you can adjust the seasoning in the stuffing to your taste. Enjoy and Happy Happy Thanksgiving!
In your response to the question about baking ahead you recommend making and freezing it prior to baking, then baking the morning of Thanksgiving and reheating later. Do you bake it frozen or thaw it first. If frozen, how much longer is required to bake it.
Thanks!
Hi Jenny, great question! Because it’s been a while since I’ve baked the stuffing from frozen, I can’t remember how many extra minutes it took to bake. It may have been around 10 extra minutes. But I would check it after the normal baking time by putting a knife through the stuffing to see if it’s hot. As long as the stuffing is browned and crispy on top you are good to go. Just make sure to brush a little extra broth to the top before baking, then brush melted butter on the top of that. This will hydrate the crust and make it taste great.
Hi! I am wondering, do you think it would be as good with a dairy substitute? If so, which one would you recommend? I can make oat or can get something like coconut/cashew. I’m just not sure which would blend/taste the best! Thank you!
Hello Natalie. I would recommend either almond or cashew milk with a little apple cider vinegar added to make a dairy-free buttermilk. Both of these milks are neutral in flavor and since they are pre-baked into the cornbread I don’t think the flavor would affect your dressing. For a dairy-free butter sub, I would just use your favorite natural butter substitute that tastes the most like butter. The flavor of the butter really comes through so use something that tastes great on its own.
I just made the cornbread for this recipe. The muffins are currently drying out. Mine turned out grainy though. Everything bound together well, but should I do anything to help with the graininess when I make the actual dressing? Thanks so much.
Yes actually that’s perfect! The extra grainy texture will add crunch to the dressing since it’s going to be hydrated with lots of broth and will be softened somewhat. Truth be told, I don’t love these all-cornbread muffins on their own. I tend to add a little gluten-free flour or regular flour to my cornbread muffins to soften the texture. But I find that for this cornbread dressing the texture works perfectly.
Hi! Thanks for the recipe. My batch came out a little salty. Is that normal? Could have sworn I put in three teaspoons 🙂 Maybe the salt flavor disperses when you cook it in with the dressing? Let me know if you have any other tips!
Hi Julia! So I assume you mean the cornbread muffins came out salty, but you haven’t baked the whole dressing altogether, correct? If so, then yes the dressing needs a good amount of seasoning as the broth, butter, eggs and aromatics will absorb the salt. I’m a bit salt sensitive and I find the amount of salt to be fine for me, so I think your dressing should turn out great.
Hi! I think one confusion is that the amount of cornmeal one uses to make the corn bread is 4 1/2 cups, and the amount of cornbread you crumble to put into the dressing is also 4 1/2 cups. Is that simply a coincidence?
Thank you for your help! Am making the dressing today!
Hi Katharine! The amount is the same as you’ll have some cornbread leftover. Since people have different sizes of casserole pans, the cornbread recipe makes extra in case readers want to add extra onions, butter, celery, and broth to fill a larger pan. Also while creating the recipe, it was confusing for me to get “exact measurements” for a cornbread recipe that would fit a casserole pan so I just created a recipe that had extra cornbread leftover.
I know that’s confusing but that’s generally how I make my cornbread, always a little leftover! If you want to use all of the cornbread, just increase the celery, onions, butter, and herbs (maybe 2 extra TBSP of each, and 1 teaspoon extra herbs), and add up to 1/2 cup extra broth until it’s pretty wet, with an extra pinch of salt and pepper. You can bake this extra dressing in a small brownie pan or a cast-iron skillet (if it’s not too big). Just know that a small pan will be done baking faster than the large casserole dish.
Please let me know how the dressing turns out and Happy Thanksgiving! I’m looking forward to enjoying this dressing today myself 🙂
I don’t have baking soda. Can I use baking powder instead?
Absolutely, that will work just fine!
This turned out so good! Thank you so much. I did add some crumbled bread and I added gf flour to my cornbread, but otherwise I followed your directions. Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh that’s so wonderful to hear Paula! Yes you can definitely customize this recipe. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
I did not see what size baking dish to use. Can you help?
Hello! Any standard-sized casserole pan will work. The size of a casserole pan that you would use to make lasagna in is a good frame of reference. Depending on the depth of the pan you may or may not have a little filling leftover that can’t fit. If that’s the case you can bake the rest in a small loaf pan, a small square brownie pan, or a pie pan depending on how much you have left. Hope that helps! Have a great Thanksgiving.
Can I make the dressing the day prior, then just add the dressing/egg/salt to the cornbread on thanksgiving day to bake? Thanks!
Yes definitely! Just be sure to completely cool down the onions and celery before adding them to the cornbread. If you wanted to save even more time on the day of, you can also make the dressing completely and bake it the day before, then cool it down completely, cover with plastic wrap and pop it in the fridge. Before serving you can coat the top of the dressing with turkey drippings and/or melted butter to rehydrate the crust and reheat at 350 degrees in the oven while the turkey is resting. It’s up to you which option works best for you. Hope this helps. Happy Thanksgiving!