Sourdough Chicken Dressing

This sourdough dressing is a perfect side dish for any holiday. It is savory and moist with a bread pudding like texture. With the addition of ground-cooked chicken, it’s almost a meal in itself. This is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.

Dressing is my favorite dish at Thanksgiving, I look forward to my Grandma Barb’s dressing every year. She learned how to make it from my German great-grandmother Grace and has passed it down. I have changed the recipe to accommodate using sourdough bread instead of yeast bread. She always grinds the chicken and onion together the old fashioned way through a hand-crank meat grinder. I used a food processor and it worked just as well. My Grandma always uses 3-day-old bread that is dry and soakes it in water before mixing it with the rest of the ingredients.

Ingredients:

10 c sliced and cubed sourdough bread ( approximately 1 loaf)

1 1/2 c cooked cubed chicken ground up

1 c chicken broth

2 eggs

1/2 c melted butter ( 1 stick)

1/2 c finely chopped onion

2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp rubbed sage

1 tsp marjoram

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp crushed rosemary

1/2 tsp thyme

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

With a serrated bread knife slice and cube your sourdough bread, removing and discarding any hard bottom crust pieces. One loaf is all it took for me to get 10 cups, depending on your bread recipe and size of your loaf you may have more or less.

Place the cubed bread into a large bowl and cover it with water. Let this soak for a good 10 minutes. With clean hands or food-grade gloves remove the bread from the water and squeeze out any excess water.

In a food processor, pulse to chop your cooked, cubed chicken until it becomes a fine ground consistency.

Use the food processor to also chop your onion finely. You may need to stop and scrape down the edges a few times to get everything cut evenly but it sure beats chopping it by hand.

To the bread add the cooked, ground chicken, finely chopped onion, eggs, chicken broth, melted butter, sea salt, sage, marjoram, black pepper, seasoned salt, rosemary, and thyme. After mixing everything together press into a 9 x 13 baking dish and bake for 50- 60 minutes or until the internal temperature reaches 165 degrees farhenheit.

Notes:

You can make this ahead of time and freeze for up to 3 months. Make a double batch and you will have enough for Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can use disposable aluminum pans to freeze it in and wrap it well to keep it from getting freezer burnt. Thaw out the night before or cook directly from the freezer. You will need to up your cooking time by 30-40 minutes if baking it directly from the freezer. Check the internal temperature with a thermometer and make sure it reaches 165 degrees fahrenheit.

Add more chicken broth if the mixture seems to dry.