Kathy's Sausage Stuffing

This recipe is from Joe's secretary. I pretty much copied the ingredients and directions word for word because they are very specific and it works! :-)

I love a good dressing with sausage!! It's as close to Grandma Lenneman's recipe as I've found (without using gizzards!). I do believe this will be our go-to stuffing recipe!

Kathy's Sausage Stuffing

Ingredients

*1 bag (14 oz) herb seasoned croutons/stuffing

*2 rolls Jimmy Dean sausage

*1 med size onion-chopped into small pieces

*6 stalks of celery-sliced thin

*2 sticks of butter

*2 cups chicken broth (if using cans, it will be about a can and a half)

*2 cups water

Instructions:

1. Brown sausage-drain well and return to clean pan. 

2. Add onions, celery and butter. 

3. Cook for 15-20 min on med heat stirring every 5 min or so

4. In the meantime, put the croutons in a large bowl

5. Add the sausage/onion/celery/butter mix and toss well

**Now this is the tricky part…knowing how much liquid to add!

6. I start with 1 cup of water and 1 cup of broth.  Boil together

(the boiling is important, but nobody knows why)

7. Sprinkle the hot liquid over the stuffing and toss while doing so

8. Let it sit for awhile-1/2 hour or so--take some time to smell how awesome it is!

Have the croutons expanded?  If not, you need more liquid.

9. Mix 1 more cup of water and 1 more cup of broth. BOIL!

10. Sprinkle and toss. Add slowly, you may need all of it, but you may not.

That’s the tricky part!  I usually use all of it but you don’t want it to be mushy

11. Cover and store in refrigerator overnight.

12. In the morning:

-stuff in turkey (at your own risk--I've never done this)

-place in covered casserole and bake 1 ½-2 hrs @ 350 (Kathy's mom does this)

-place in crock pot on low for 4 hrs-stir once every hr (Kathy does this)

NOTE: I prefer to use the oven because I like to have a little crunch to my stuffing; so I take the cover off for the last 20 or 30 minutes.

NOTE: This recipe makes a lot! Probably about 15 - 1 cup servings!

NOTE: For Thanksgiving 2015: I mixed up the ingredients a few days before, covered and put in freezer. I took out of freezer EARLY Thanksgiving morning so it had time to thaw before putting in the oven to bake. I would definitely make this ahead of time again: such a time-saver!

NOTE: For Thanksgiving 2015, I made two batches of this recipe and I had leftovers! But, the leftovers were eaten--nothing went to waste!

NOTE: For Thanksgiving 2017, I cut the butter it called for IN HALF! (So, 1 stick butter per batch) I think it was great—and cut back on the grease! I may add a little bit of chicken broth at the end and stir that in to help keep it moist (if you feel it looks a little dry).