Cornbread Stuffing Recipe (ish)
One or two days before you need it, make cornbread recipe of your choice. Let it sit for a day, then cube it up and make breadcrumbs in the oven so they're dried out. IME this is actually good enough to hold up to liquid you'll add later without dissolving into mush. (Rainbow Plant Life's recipe is a good starter if you want a satiating cornbread, but I would cut the sugar for this use case - it's already high calorie/fat enough. Don't need the maple syrup and don't need even the true amount of sugar she uses, but you do you, it's holidays after all) Night before or morning of holiday, make stuffing with it. I typically use the same base approach I've used for years: carrots/celery/onion, pepper, herbs of choice, crushed up toasted nut of some kind, and then periodically ladle in a broth for it all to soak up as it bakes. I usually avoid adding salt early on since I use a chicken-less broth to mimic the flavors I remember, but it carries a higher sodium content. When it's done cooking, let it cool in the fridge and reheat it before serving - flavor's always improve for whatever reason. (Also randomly picked up a bunch of Jack & Annie's maple breakfast sausages last year and added them in chopped up, which worked really well) Keeps for a few days, acts as a fantastic binder for everything you could slop on a plate, and tastes great with cranberry sauce. It is hands down the only recipe/approach I've tried that gets close to what I remember eating growing up. Served it to multiple groups now and everyone just assumes it's "regular food".
