Your new go-to holiday side dish, Easy Garlic and Herb Stuffing proves that you don’t need a ton of butter to make a flavorful stuffing.
Stuffing is my favorite holiday side dish. I grew up with my mom making huge batches of it for Thanksgiving. It would take her days to put it all together.
Cut the bread up and leave it up to stale up for a couple of days. Make the stock. Chop the veggies. Soften the sticks and sticks of butter.
I’m here to tell you that even though that kind of days-dedication to prepping and cooking leads to delicious stuffing, you can achieve similar results with less steps and–more importantly–way less calories.
It’s eggy and tender on the inside, with lots of herby flavor, yet crunchy on the edges. The perfect fall side dish.
Add this Easy Garlic and Herb Stuffing recipe to your Thanksgiving menu now!
tips for prepping ahead of time
The holidays are for family time, so I understand that any tips for prepping your food ahead of the big day can be helpful. No one wants to spend the entire day in the kitchen while everyone else is having fun.
You could make the entire recipe, up until baking it in the oven, up to 2 days in advance. Just cover tightly with tin foil and refrigerate. Make sure to take it out of the refrigerator about an hour before you want to cook it, to bring to room temperature. Then, just follow the regular cooking instructions.
If you want to make it fresh the day of your celebration, you can still do some prep to make the process quicker. Stale your bread at least the day before. Chop up the onion, celery, and garlic, and store them in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.
Honestly, though, this is such an easy recipe that you don’t need to stress about prepping at all. Just give yourself about an hour-and-a-half window of time (most of that is just baking in the oven), and you’ll be good to go the day of!
How to Make Easy Garlic and Herb STuffing
Make sure you pick up these ingredients:
- French bread
- Large sweet onion
- Celery
- Lots of garlic
- Garlic powder
- Rubbed sage
- Dried Thyme
- Fresh Parsley
- Eggs
- Better than Bouillon Chicken Base
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked pepper
The ingredient list is super simple, and you might have most of these on hand already. One part that I cannot stress enough is to invest in the Better than Bouillon.
Any time I list “fat free stock” as an ingredient in a recipe, I’m using this. Normally, I think it’s fine to use the canned or boxed stuff, if that’s what you have on hand.
For this recipe, though, we’re using minimal ingredients, so everything needs to be great quality to maximize flavor, especially since we’re cutting back so much on the butter.
You cannot beat the flavor of Better than Bouillon! I can find it at any grocery store in the soup/broth section. It can be pricey, so your best deal will bet at Costco.
I’d love to hear from you if you make this recipe! Leaving a starred review and comment below helps my blog grow. I’m always grateful when you can take the time to do that!
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Easy Garlic and Herb Stuffing
Ingredients
- 14 ounces French bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
- 2 tbsp light butter (Earth Balance whipped)
- 1 large sweet onion, diced (about 2 1/2 cups)
- 4 celery stalks, minced (about 2 cups)
- 5 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 1/2 tsp dried, rubbed sage
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 1/2 tbsp Better than Bouillon chicken or vegetable base*
- 3 cups water*
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup packed, freshy parsley leaves, chopped
- more parsley for garnish
Instructions
DRY OUT THE BREAD
- Place bread cubes in a large baking dish, loosely tent with foil and let sit overnight.
- Or, put baking dish in oven, toasting at 350 degrees F until the bread cubes are like croutons, about 15 minutes or so.
MAKE THE STUFFING
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spritz a 9×13 baking dish with nonstick spray. Place the bread in a large mixing bowl.
- Heat the butter in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Once melted, stir in the onion, celery and garlic with the kosher salt and pepper. Cook until the onions and celery soften, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Stir in the sage, thyme, and bouillon. Cook for another minute. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of water.
- Pour the vegetable mixture over the bread crumbs and toss well to coat.
- In the same skillet, off of the heat, whisk together the remaining 1 ½ cups water, fresh parsley, and 2 eggs. Pour this mixture into the bread cubes and stir and fold the bread cubes until thoroughly combined.
- Bake the stuffing for 40-45 minutes, until the internal temperature registers 160 degrees F. If the stuffing is getting too browned, you can tent it with foil.
- Let cool for at least 5 minutes. Sprinkle with minced parsley. Cut the casserole into 8 portions and serve.
The dressing recipe I made for Thanksgiving bombed so I wanted to redeem myself. This has the taste and texture that I was looking for. I think I’ll add carrots next time to bulk it up.