KCTS 9 Holidays Recipe: Apple and Sausage Stuffing

KCTS 9 Holidays Recipe: Apple and Sausage Stuffing

Apple and Sausage Stuffing

KCTS 9 Cooks Side Dish, November 2009

Sarah Boyd, Seattle

Serves 4

This is my favorite part of any turkey dinner. Gala apples, wild mushrooms, onions, celery and woodsy herbs like thyme and parsley all combined and stuffed inside your bird or baked on the side, and the next day in your sandwich. There is nothing that says fall more to me. Yum!

Ingredients

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1/2 large onion, finely diced
11/2 stalks celery, diced small
1 cup wild mushrooms, rough chopped
salt and pepper
dried thyme and parsley, to sprinkle
1 teaspoon dried sage
1 Gala apple peeled, diced small
6 breakfast sausage links or 6 ounces bulk sausage meat
4 cups assorted ripped bread
1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice
1/2 cup chicken stock

Preparation

Heat a nonstick high-sided pan with vegetable oil. Add finely chopped onion and celery. Sauté on medium-high heat for about 3 minutes until vegetables start to soften. Add mushrooms and continue cooking another 3 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, parsley, thyme and sage. Add Gala apple and sauté 2 minutes. Squeeze sausage meat out of casings into vegetable and apple mixture. Break up with spoon. When sausage meat is cooked through, add bread pieces. Mix well with spoon to incorporate.

Pour apple juice over the stuffing to moisten the mixture. Add chicken stock and continue stirring to combine. The stuffing should be moist and cohesive with distinctive chunks of apples, mushrooms and sausage. More liquid may be needed depending on how dry the bread was. Add extra apple juice as needed.

Put stuffing into stuffing bag, cheesecloth or nylon stocking if it is to go inside the bird, otherwise place in a buttered baking dish that can be covered with foil or lid and bake 30 to 45 minutes at 350 degrees. Enjoy!