Traditional Southern Dressing Recipe

One of the things I love about being a blogger is making friends with different women from around the bloggosphere that I'd never have a chance to know otherwise. April Lewis Patel, of AnAppleADayWisdom.com and author of the great ebook "Don't Compost It- Cook It!" is one of those really great ladies.
April and I have had many great talks about all sorts of things, among them, our two mutual loves- frugality, and cooking. One day I was looking for ideas of what to cook for supper, and April suggested Southern dressing, as it was gluten free and cheap.
I had never heard of Southern dressing before; the phrase immediately conjured up images of salads made of collard greens, pickled watermelon rind, and topped with bacon grease... but April corrected me-
Southern dressing isn't salad dressing or anything even remotely connected- its just a cornbread based stuffing type thing! Who wudda thunk it?

Southern dressing is really delicious- the perfect gluten free alternative to bread based stuffing; that's why it appeared on my Thanksgiving dinner table, but its also great any other time as well! While it is usually eaten with gravy made out of chicken or turkey broth, hard boiled eggs, chicken pieces, and thickener like cornstarch, potato starch, or flour, I thoroughly enjoy this dish even with no gravy over it.
And it is just so, so, so simple to make!

If you're egg free, feel free to leave the hard boiled eggs out of this recipe; it's just as good that way. But you'll need to add another protein in its place if you wanted a whole meal out of this dish. If you're vegan, just use vegetable broth instead of a meat based one, though I'll admit, its not as yummy.

Oh- and one other thing- Southern dressing is a terrific thing to do with cornbread that is old and got dry and stale- no need to throw it out! Though I'll admit, I usually just whip up a batch of cornbread specifically for this- if I wait until I have leftovers, it won't happen- there rarely is any cornbread left over when I make some.

P.S. If you don't have cornbread, and aren't gluten free, you can use stale bread for this in place of the cornbread.

Traditional Southern Dressing Recipe- Gluten Free Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups cornbread (try this gluten free cornbread or this one) (or stale bread)
5 hard boiled eggs (optional)
1-2 1/2 cups chicken, beef, or vegetable broth (homemade, of course)
6 carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery (leaves and stems)
1-2 onions
1 tablespoon dried sage
1 teaspoon salt (optional)
1 tablespoon sweetener (optional- sugar, honey, rapadura, coconut crystals- all work fine)

Instructions:
1. Take your cornbread (or bread) and crumble it until you have small pieces. This works best with stale cornbread for this reason- it crumbles more easily.

2. Peel your carrots and chop them into small pieces, either small cubes or thin slices.

3. Chop your onion small.

4. Chop your celery small.

5. Chop your hard boiled eggs small.

6. Mix your cornbread crumbs, carrots, onions, celery, and hard boiled eggs all together.

7. Season with sage and sweetener if desired. (Leave out the sweetener if your cornbread is sweet or you prefer things savory.) Add salt if your broth isn't salty.

8. Add enough broth to the mixture until it gets the cornbread crumbles and broth get the consistency of lumpy cake batter, between 1/2 to 1 1/2 cups of broth.

9. Bake covered in the oven at 350 until the carrots are mostly soft. Uncover and cook 15 minutes longer, or until the top is browned.

10. Serve with gravy!

Enjoy!

Do you make stuffing? Or do you also call it dressing? What do you put in your stuffing/dressing? Is it similar to this, or no?
Does this look like a recipe you'd try?

Linking up to Allergy Free Wednesday