Southern Cornbread Dressing

This Southern Cornbread Dressing is super moist and absolutely delicious! It will be the only cornbread dressing recipe that you will ever need! Serve it with turkey or chicken for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Sunday Dinner.

Southern Cornbread Dressing is one of the “Holy Grail” dishes of Southerners. Our Cornbread Dressing is sacred to us. We serve it with a juicy slice of roasted turkey drizzled with delicious giblet gravy and cranberry sauce! My mouth is watering now!

It’s a delicious Southern Tradition-Cornbread Dressing!

Cornbread dressing is the pride and joy of a Southern holiday. You’ll never find stuffing on a Southern Thanksgiving table, not that stuffing isn’t good, it's just that it’s not a Southern tradition. Classic Southern Cornbread Dressing is very savory, made of course with cornbread, buttery sautéed celery, and onions and seasoned with sage and lots of black pepper. Plus, eggs, cream of chicken soup and lots and lots of rich broth. Here’s my recipe for cornbread. It’s delicious and you’ll need to start out with a great tasting moist cornbread Southern Buttermilk Cornbread I’ve spent years perfecting this recipe, tweaking the seasonings, adjusting the moisture, testing every trick in the book so you can make a pan of dressing that is super moist, perfectly seasoned, and truly Southern. This is the dressing my family asks for every Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’m finally sharing every single step with you:

• how to season it
• how moist it should be
• how to sauté your onions and celery
• the exact texture to look for before baking

This will be the best dressing that you have ever had. My grandmother made the best dressing and she passed down her dressing-making secrets to my mother and she passed them down to me. Now, I’m going to share them with you.

So what makes a good tasting dressing? It’s got to be extra moist and the seasoning has to be perfect. For a successful Thanksgiving Dinner, a lot is hinging on how well the dressing turns out. But, don’t worry or stress out, I’m going to show you how to make the world’s best tasting Southern Cornbread Dressing. Let’s get started!

Ingredients that you will need to make Southern Cornbread Dressing (Be sure to see the full printable recipe below this post.)

• White self-rising cornbread mix (I use White Lily)
• Self-rising flour
• Vegetable oil
• Eggs
• Buttermilk
• Butter
• Celery
• Yellow sweet onions
• Rubbed sage (Be sure not to use ground sage. It will turn your dressing green.)
• Salt and pepper
• Cream of chicken soup
• Rich chicken broth

3 simple tips on making the perfect Southern Cornbread Dressing beside from the recipe. (These are from my mother and they are very important.)

1. Use broth from a container, not canned broth, such as Swanson’s. Use only a little broth from the turkey that you bake. (About 1 cup from the turkey broth.) The turkey broth is very rich (and delicious) but if you use too much your dressing will be greasy.
2. Fill the uncooked dressing to almost to the very top of the casserole dish. You want a nice thick, juicy moist dressing. You might think it is too much filling but trust me it’s not. This is simple but hugely important. If you only fill ⅔ of the dish, the dressing will be too thin and dry.
3. Don’t overcook the dressing. Dressing will be a little wobbly in the center but will continue to firm up and cook after it’s removed from the oven.

Step-by-step directions for making cornbread dressing

1. Make the cornbread first. If possible, make the cornbread the night before. This will be a very big pan of cornbread, but that’s what you’ll need for the dressing. We are adding a good bit of flour to the cornbread batter so you won’t be needing to add bread to the dressing mix.

1. Crumble the cornbread into fine bread crumbs. You can use your hands or a food processor. Let the cornbread cool completely before mixing it with the other ingredients.
2. In a large skillet, melt butter and add the finely chopped celery and onions and sauté until tender but still a little crunchy.

1. Add the sage, salt, and black pepper and mix well into the cornbread crumbs.

1. Next, add the melted butter, cooked celery, and onions to the cornbread crumbs, eggs, and cream of chicken soup, and mix well.

1. Next, add the chicken broth. This is an extra moist dressing so it does take a lot of chicken broth. Mixture will be soupy.

Mix well and pour the cornbread batter into 1 well-greased 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish and 1 well-greased 8-inch square baking dish. Fill almost to the top of the casserole dish. Bake the dressing in a preheated 375 oven, uncovered for 40 to 50 minutes or until it's golden brown and hot and bubbly. Let the dressing set for about 10 minutes before serving. This will give it a chance to firm up a bit.

Serve hot with roasted turkey or chicken, gravy, and lots of cranberry sauce!

Can You make the Dressing up a day or two ahead and cook it the day of serving?

Absolutely! Just store the uncooked dressing batter in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You will need 1 or more cups of chicken broth to the batter because it probably has absorbed some of the moisture. You can also freeze the uncooked dressing batter too. Thaw out in the refrigerator overnight. There again, add a little more broth to it.

Be sure to check out some of my favorite side dishes to serve with cornbread dressing or your holiday meal.

Perfect Mashed Potatoes Green Bean Casserole

Parmesan Squash Casserole

Warmed Jalapeno-Cranberry Sauce Sweet Potato Crunch Casserole Sweet Potato Souffle Marshmallows Baked Macaroni & Cheese Click here to buy my best selling cookbook. Over 380 delicious Southern recipes! Deliciously Southern makes a great gift to yourself or for a friend. Deliciously Southern (Autographed Edition)

I hope you enjoy this delicious Southern cornbread recipe and you pass it down. Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Thank you for stopping by! Enjoy! Aletia Be sure to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, and please subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss a recipe!