hey YouTube Thanksgiving is right around the corner which is my favorite holiday ever oh yes you've never come across one of my videos it's kind of my thing but it also means that it's time to start thinking about stuffing here we go we're gonna do this alright so the first thing I have to say is we need to talk about the difference between stuffing and dressing do you know what the difference is right Rick you've all talked on camera um nothing there's no difference whatsoever same recipes you can have the same variety of ingredients you can use whatever bread you want you could add seafood you can add dried fruit you can add sausage or bacon or leave them all out it doesn't matter it is the stuff made from bread the leftover brick now originally okay first of all let me say this this is about a one pound loaf of Italian bread it's a couple days old it's a little stale that's perfect I cut it up into cubes and I'm gonna throw this or you come over here I'm gonna throw this and it would 350 degree oven we're gonna let it dry out why do we want it to dry out well the texture will be a lot better but the more moisture that comes out of the ground the more room there is in the bread to absorb some of these other flavors that we want to put in it so we're gonna make it taste nice and rich and deeply flavored so here in this skillet we have Ricky's ramen in the background and the beef stew I'm making so sorry about that so over here in this skillet I have four tablespoons butter I'm southern and you salted butter this is about four stalks of celery and include leave the green leafy bits there's tons of flavor in those and I think they're beautiful one of the hallmarks of a traditional southern dressing is lots of celery all right so I've got this the four stalks of celery including the leafy tops and I've got one yellow onion this is just gonna come over here and that four tablespoons of butter on medium-low heat Tobi's vegetables soften so this is gonna sit over here and do its thing while we come over here let me talk about our herbs which I have already lost oh no I didn't sorry this is fresh thyme is my shadow my shadows blocking that in it that's fresh thyme it's about six or seven sprigs so about a tablespoon and a half and I just minced it up little and this of course mmm sage is a hallmark of Thanksgiving flavors and this is fresh sage that's just one sprig I'm pulling the leaves off if you're saving a stock bag throw the stems that you don't use there the stems in your stock bag I don't have one at the moment so we're gonna pretend all right so these usually to deal with sage sage is gorgeous but in this instant we don't want to bite into a big hunk so I just stacked all those leaves up seem to stack them up I'm just rolling them over we're gonna run our knife through it this way if this were basil this would be a Shifa nod this non basil and it's not long enough to be shifted so you end up these little short stubby pieces and I just like to run my knife through it love fresh sage and it packs a punch in this dressing really the flavor profile of I keep calling it dressing okay that's a southern thing we tended not to stuff our Birds we baked it on the side so it dressed the bird because it was next to it up north people tended to stuff their bird so it was stuffing I call it dressing I'm sorry I mean stuffing into that same thing mmm anyway the flavor profile from this stuffing really comes from two places comes from the fresh herbs so we're using parsley we're using sage and we're using time but it also comes and I'll talk about this in a minute it comes from the broth now you're gonna get a lot of the texture from the boar head that's why I like to use a nice rustic chunky something if you thanks for stirring that ricky-ricky stir in our he's stirring our onions and celery over there they were starting to sing to him all right that's all so that the stems from the parsley that's also a great thing to throw in a stock bag I'm actually cleaning out my freezer that's what saving one so good 1/2 cup at least with chopped fresh parsley we're gonna set these over here the other part of the flavor profile drop that egg right on the counter and I rescued it that never would have happened in real life that egg would have fallen on the floor I got all over my shoe that's magic okay so the other part of the flavor profile other than this wonderful fresh herbs comes from the broth or these stuff that you used now I used broth of stock all the time and tons of videos tons of recipes how wonderful homemade broth is if you have it but I also give you a pass you are free to use the Box stuff and more power to you I use it all the time too however for Thanksgiving and for stuffing or dressing I do think the flavor is important enough but a little ahead of Thanksgiving I will roast a turkey just to make turkey broth out of and that's what this is because the turkey flavor is so intense that's why stuffing that's why Yankee birds are so delicious it's because the stuffing as it bakes absorbs all the juices that come out of the bird and the dressing ends up being just flavor is amazing well to capture that I will run stop a turkey and make roast turkey broth and I use that to make my dressing if you don't do that it's fine you're still gonna have absolutely delicious dressing but if you got a minute a week before Thanksgiving roast a test turkey make yourself some broth you will be glad I'm Thanksgiving that you have it to work with okay so all of our ingredients are prepped we have our bread in the oven drying out that's probably gonna take about 20 about 20 minutes I'm gonna give it a stir here a few minutes I'm gonna let these veggies sit here and just get fragrant and nice and soft we have our other than some salt and pepper this is all the ingredients you need so some eggs to bind it together French thyme fresh sage fresh parsley and your broth roasted turkey if you got it but I'm not gonna talk about you if you could use something else we're going alright it's our bread just about 20 minutes I came in here and I kind of stirred it around you see how it's got nice and toasty that's perfect that is just another added dimension of flavor and you can use whatever bread you like you can use some actually normally what I do and I'll try to I'll try to link it through I normally a few days before Thanksgiving I'll make a couple loaves of French bread which is not hard at all and I will then let those go stale cut them up and use only just like this love it but you go to the store you're gonna you can grab Italian bread you can grab sourdough makes absolutely wonderful stuffing I have a brand new sourdough starter Jenna started putting together so I may have sourdough homemade sourdough by the time we get to Thanksgiving oh that's what that crunch was alright so we're gonna get our onions and our celery and this just goes right in here and that butter is really gonna help boost the flavor of the entire dish now something about stuffing do you want to talk about use a great big container I have a giant mixing bowl but it's over on the counter and all of my apples and are not in Apple's my onions are in it so that doesn't do any good I usually use a stockpot actually to give you so give yourself some real estate that's for eggs including the one I did not ha ha you know Spenny Ricky not focusing you get it no nope now pause until you do keep going alright I was thinking about this this morning I know you're not crazy about stuffing anymore are you that's not your favorite you know what you did when you were little you were about three years old and it was about two weeks before Christmas I asked you what you wanted for breakfast can you said stuff what what stuff for breakfast I went through my entire repertoire for about a week and a half trying to figure out what me name of God you were talking about you were talking about stuffing he won't stop alright so I put in a good teaspoon and a half I cannot find my kosher salt it was reduced to table salt not my favorite I've put in about a teaspoon and a half of table salt I would actually prefer to pretty good teaspoons of kosher salt and then I gave a lot of freshly cracked black pepper think about the flavors that are good with Turkey so you're talking parsley sage thyme thyme is citrus something happening in the background same time is my favorite but lots of black pepper okay here's our broth I would love to give you an exact measurement this is about two cups I have made stuffing dressing now I'm tripping myself up I have made this with as little as two cups and as many as four it depends on the type of bread you have it depends on how toasted your bread was so start with a little and just keep mixing so that's the other thing is you want your dressing to be the consistency that you like and it takes the bread because we've dried it out so much be patient it takes the bread a moment or two to absorb the moisture just like when you're making bread what I make the other day I saw that principle happening you add the liquid and it takes the flower of a moment to absorb I can tell that's going to take some more I have a quart and a half and I'm pretty sure in abruzzo I don't think we're gonna get short all right let's see I dropped the egg on the counter I threw stuffing halfway across and almost reached oh I'm old today we're gonna pretend I didn't do that there all right we're adding the full two cups and I may go grab something out of the fridge in a second so anyway when you're making your dressing just look at it pay attention if it starts to get soggy stop actually that's advice for life would improve to it I am really trying my best to make Ricky laugh out loud because he will not talk on camera I've gotten several big laughs alright I am actually gonna grab the rest of it of the broth because that's coming you notice how much that's reduced that's why you start out with a ton of real estate to work in and you end up just enough to fill a casserole dish all right let's see I I just told y'all not to worry about volumes didn't so I'm not gonna worry about measuring that no as funny as I was looking at some of our earlier videos Ricky I'm also gonna warn you shot in 2010 and Boone was in it and he was 5 I think he was so little and he wouldn't quit talking he what's so excited about stuffing that I actually had to say buddy I need you to quit talking on the video all right this is just about there guys I can still feel some crunch to some of the bread it's like that still has some resistance but then we are getting well nice and soft on others ooh but you know what still dry in the middle so here's what we're gonna do we're gonna give it about five minutes just to soak up all that goodness we're gonna make one final check to see if I want to add any more or if I'm ready to stop with the stuff and then we'll show you how to put it in the oven and get it perfect I'm filming now all right normally at this point I would tell you to taste before you bake it off to make sure that your seasonings are correct but this is full of raw eggs okay so that's one of those things where you actually that's perfect don't look at me that way yes it had a rug and I don't care I would really rather well first of all I know where my eggs come from and I know they've been stored correctly and I know they're safe so that takes out a whole lot of the issue and the worry so they're I don't want to hear it know anybody go ooh you'll get sent to your room all right so we have a 9 by 13 tips and I did put just a little splash more of the turkey broth I gotta say from that little taste I just took the turkey flavor just pops I'm so excited over this I'm glad I'm gonna have it for food when he comes home from school cuz I think that's the last time boom talked much of his life food is not a talker unlike the rest of us this family really has to get the gab and nobody's even kissed the Blarney Stone least not yet but boom done he's not quiet all the rest of y'all are just loud noise okay so Pat it down into your baking dish and I buttered this baking dish pretty heavily it helps it not to stick but it's another layer of flavor and that little bit I spilled on the counter it was driving me nuts and I know my oven set to 350 degrees now let's talk about this for a second you have a couple options this is normally a dish because I make the turkey broth to use for the dressing the week before what I'm doing Thanksgiving or Christmas prep this is one of the dishes I will make a couple of days ahead the trick to that is be super careful with your temperatures and make sure you're storing everything it you've got raw egg in it and broth so you have to be really careful but cover it tightly stick it in the coldest part of your refrigerator then Thanksgiving Day when you take your turkey out you can throw this in and it will bake in about 30 to 45 minutes depending on how crusty you like the top right so while your turkey is resting you've already done the prep work for the dressing it just go right in the oven how cool is that or or you're gonna use it we're gonna trick you like he cares Rick if you're gonna stuff your turkey if you're actually gonna stuff this inside the bird make it ahead and chill it completely before you put everything together okay much safer all right in the end of 350 degrees here we go do you show my oven I have not cleaned this oven in three weeks you ought to be ashamed of yourself so right at 40 40 to 45 minutes and I could see on the edge I don't know if you can see Ricky it's this doesn't quite this is not a casserole the quite gets bubbly but you can see a lot of action here we got nice and golden and crusty on the top you can tell that from touching hopefully we will still have a nice soft interior but we have some texture from the veggies and from that bread whoo and it smells great how do we do hmm ma'am that's really good stuffing yep hey YouTube thanks for watching and if you thought that video was helpful do me a huge favor hit like hit subscribe hit the little Bell so you get a notification whenever I post a new video and if you have a second hop on over to patreon and check out how to support my channel even more again thanks for watching