Thanksgiving Stuffing Balls

By jaisarra

Ingredients

• 20 slices of stale white (or whole wheat) bread cubed
• 1 batch sage cornbread, staled overnight and crumbled
• 3 cups (a 12-ounce bag) pecans, lightly toasted
• 1 pound ground sausage
• 4 small onions, diced roughly
• 6 stalks of celery, sliced into bite-sized chunks
• 3 sticks of unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup chopped sage (about two large handfuls)
• 12 ounces evaporated milk
• 1 cup chicken or turkey stock
• 6 eggs, whisked
• 1 tablespoon freshly ground pepper, or to taste
• 1 tablespoon salt, or more to taste

Details

Servings 54
Preparation time 40mins
Cooking time 65mins
Adapted from lickmyspoon.com

Preparation

Step 1

This makes a ton of stuffing, so have a super huge bowl on hand to mix everything. Whatever bowl you just picked? Not big enough. Go another size up. Now, place the bread, cornbread pieces and pecans into the bowl and set aside.

Break up the sausage into a skillet and cook until it’s browned and cooked through. Use a wooden spoon along the way to break up the sausage into whatever sized pieces you like. Transfer the cooked sausage with a slotted spoon to the bowl of bread, leaving the drippings in the skillet.

Saute the onions and celery in the sausage drippings (yeah, I know. Look, it’s Thanksgiving, okay?) on medium-low heat until translucent, but not browned. About 8-10 minutes. Add the mixture, drippings and all, into the bread bowl.

Put the butter into your hot skillet, and melt on low heat. Add in the chopped sage and cook until the butter melts and just starts to bubble and foam. Pour it all over the bread, and don’t think about your arteries absorbing the fat like the bread does. Shhh…It’s so good.

Now add in the evaporated milk, stock, and whisked eggs. Season with salt and pepper. You may think the mixture too wet, but you’re wrong. Just wait and see.

You can freeze or refrigerate this wet mixture ahead of time!!! Really! So either right away, or after you’ve thawed the frozen stuffing, fill up a cast iron skillet (or form your stuffing balls – I like using a trigger ice cream scoop which ensures me quick and uniform balls). However you do it, bake 30 minutes (closer to 20-25 minutes if you are doing stuffing balls) in a 375° oven. Enjoy.