Grain-Free Apple, Sage + Sausage Stuffing

Serves 8     adjust servings

 

Ingredients

  • 1 loaf of blonde legit bread
  • 2 Tbsp. of butter or ghee
  • 1 medium leek, washed and chopped
  • 1 lb mild Italian sausage
  • 2 large granny smith apples, cored and chopped
  • 7 stalks of celery, washed and chopped
  • 5 fresh sage leaves, chopped finely
  • 1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves
  • 1 cup turkey stock or bone broth of your choice
  • sea salt, to taste
  • 2 eggs, beaten well

Instructions

The day before you're planning to make your stuffing, cut your loaf of legit bread into cubes and lay it out onto a baking sheet in a single layer. Allow it to sit out for 24 hours in order to become stale. If you need to accelerate this process, you can crisp it up under in an oven by baking the cubes at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, flipping them halfway through. I personally like to use both these methods--letting it stale up, and then crisping it right before use. Set aside your dry bread cubes for later use. 

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Heat up your butter or ghee in a enameled dutch oven over medium heat. Allow the butter to completely melt and cover the bottom of the pot. Add the leek to the melted butter and saute until the leek has softened. 

If your sausage is in casings, remove the casings and add the sausage to the pot with the butter and the leeks. Use a spatula or a spoon to cut up the sausage into bite sized pieces. Allow the sausage to cook all the way through, until there are no pink pieces left. 

Once your sausage is cooked, add the apples, celery, sage and thyme. Stir and allow the apples and celery to cook down in the butter and sausage fat. The apples should soften slightly within five minutes or so. 

Once your apples and celery have cooked down a bit, it's time to add the stale legit bread cubes. Add half of them into the pot and stir. Add in the turkey stock at this point, and the rest of the bread cubes. The bread will begin to break down and incorporate itself into the other mixture. It's okay if the cubes don't stay perfectly intact. You want them to break down a bit and mix into the other ingredients. 

At this point, taste the mixture and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add in salt to your liking. Remove the stuffing from the heat. 

Beat two eggs very well. Pour the beaten eggs into the stuffing mixture and stir together. This is going to help bind your stuffing. Using the back of a cooking spoon, flatten out the top of your stuffing. Put a lid on the top and bake it for 20 minutes in the oven. After 20 minutes, remove the lid and bake it for an additional twenty minutes, or until the top is crispy. 

Remove, serve and enjoy! 

Leftovers will keep for several days in the refrigerator--but, I doubt you'll have any! ;) 

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Recipe Notes

 

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