Cornbread and sausage stuffing is a compelling alternative to the usual bread-based dish. But the recipes we tried all called for store-bought cornbread, which had a fluffy texture that resulted in mushy stuffing. We’d have to make the cornbread from scratch.
We began with our favorite cornbread recipe: Combine cornmeal with flour, leavener, salt and sugar (which we omitted) before whisking in eggs, buttermilk, milk and melted butter.
Because our dressing would offer tons of flavor, we decided to eliminate the buttermilk and replace the butter with vegetable oil; tasters couldn’t tell the difference. We cubed the cornbread and, while it worked fine to let it stale overnight, we found we could achieve the same results more quickly by drying it out in a low oven.
We tried assembling the dressing and storing the whole casserole in the fridge overnight, but unfortunately the cornbread became too mushy. We opted instead to wait until just before baking to combine the cornbread with chicken broth, eggs, browned sausage and aromatics.
To increase richness, we added extra sausage, doubled the eggs to 4 and replaced 1 cup of the chicken broth with half-and-half. We also drizzled melted butter over the dressing before baking it, which helped crisp the top. Instead of oven-drying, you can let the cut cornbread stale overnight at room temperature.