Cornbread Dressing with Chicken

Thanksgiving is almost here. It’s time to start thinking about what we want for our Thanksgiving meal. Some dishes can be prepared ahead of time like this cornbread dressing. Mix it up, put it in a freezer safe dish, cover tightly, and freeze. I think it tastes better when I do it ahead of time and freeze it. Let it thaw and bake the day of your dinner. I certainly hope you will try this recipe and let me know how you like it.

Enjoy!
Karen & Paul

Contact us at:
karenjonesfoodfamily@aol.com
kjnpj20@gmail.com
popjones59@gmail.com

Write us at:
Food & Family
PO Box 675
McCalla, AL 35111

Cornbread Dressing
Preheat oven to 435 degrees
I used an 8″ and a 10″ iron skillet
Put your skillets in the oven when you start to preheat so they will be hot when you are ready to pour up your cornbread mixture.

3 cups Buttermilk Cornmeal Mix, White Lily
1/4 cup self rising flour, White Lily
2 tsp salt
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk, low fat (if using whole fat it will take more)
Mix well.

In hot skillets add 1 Tbsp shortening and 1 Tbsp butter
Pour mixture into each skillet.
Bake at 435 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden
After cornbread has baked, remove from skillets and put into a large bowl. After bread has cooled, crumble it finely. Some larger pieces are good.
Set aside.

Boil 4 bone in, skin on, chicken breasts, or 1 whole chicken, with 2 stalks celery and 1 onion. Salt chicken well. This is the time to season it all the way through.
Cook until chicken is done and tender.
When chicken has finished cooking, remove chicken pieces to a plate and strain chicken broth into another bowl and discard the celery and onion.

Reserve about half a breast of chicken for gravy. Shred chicken but too finely. You will want some larger pieces. Add to crumbled cornbread.
3 stalks celery, diced
1 large onion, diced
2 tsp sage
2 tsp poultry seasoning.
Taste for salt if you need to add more.
Stir bread mixture.

4-5 cups chicken broth, or more if needed for right consistency
Pour over bread mixture. Stir well. You want the bread to be wet but not soupy with broth. Spray a 9X13 baking dish with non-stick spray. Add mixture and bake 1 1/2 hours or until golden and set. You want the dressing to still be moist so be sure not to overbake.

Gravy (this is not exact, I can only give approximate measurements)
2 Tbsp Oil or 1 Tbsp oil and 1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
salt and pepper to taste
3 eggs, hard boiled
4 cups chicken broth.

Get oil and butter hot. Add flour, salt and pepper to taste. Cook 2-3 minutes. Add chicken broth a little at a time, stirring well after each addition. If your gravy is too thick, add more stock or a little water. Cut up eggs and stir into gravy. Serve in a pretty bowl.

Enjoy!
Karen & Paul

Foreign Hey everybody it’s Karen with food and family and Thanksgiving is almost here so we’re getting ready to make some dishes we want to put them in the freezer so save this time when we’re cooking our Thanksgiving meal and one I love to put in the freezer ahead of time

Is my cornbread dressing after it sits it just everything just melts together and marries together I’ve got my oven preheating to 435 that is the perfect temperature to bake your cornbread on I’ve got two Skillets I’m making a lot of cornbread a lot of dressing so I’ve got

A 10 inch Skillet and then I’ve got um scissors six or eight inch Skillet smaller one so that’ll be enough for my family so we’ll start out we’re going to start out with three cups of cornmeal now this is white lily buttermilk cornmeal mix that’s what I like to use

Yeah I’ve heard me before I love white lily and yes I know this has flour and salt and everything in it already but you know I like to add a little bit more it’s just the way I’ve always done it and the way I like to make it so I’ve

Got three coats of that cornmeal mix and I’m going to put brought about a quarter of a cup of flour I don’t want it cakey but I just like to add that little extra bit of flour then we’re going to add some salt I like to add extra salt

I’ve got some chicken back here on the stove boiling I’ve got four large chicken breasts salt it really well you want it seasoned you want that meat season this is your opportunity to get it all in I’ve got onion and some celery letting it cook that’s going to make my broth

So we want fresh homemade broth you can make it with uh store-bought with the Box stock and it would still be good but we just like to do it like this I’m going to put in a couple of eggs and I forget to get my buttermilk out I’ll get that

I’ll be right back but I want to rinse this eggs off my hand s I’m going to start with two cups of milk but I think it’s probably going to take a little more now when you use like whole fat buttermilk when you can find it sometimes we can’t find it it’s I

Don’t know why but if you use the um low-fat buttermilk it won’t take as much because it’s a lot thinner so let’s start out with that cup I’m sure it’s going to take more and that is still too thick can you see that so let’s put the rest of it in

So we’ve got two cups of milk in it maybe that’ll do it because this is the thinner oh I think that’s gonna work yeah oh that’s looking good look now that’s the perfect consistency for your cornbread so let’s move some of this stuff out of the way I’m going to get my

Skillets out of the oven and see if they’re hot enough you want them hot I like to put them in the oven when I start preheating it and by the time I get them out it’s screaming hot so we got them there and I’m going to add a little bit of solid shortening to each one Crisco solid shortening if you’ve got large use lard

I just don’t have any look it’s already melting it doesn’t take a whole lot well one reason being we’re gonna add some butter to that skillet [Applause] add a little bit of butter as my granny would say that’s just gonna make it gooder so now what we need to do

Is we’re going to divide this cornbread batter between the two Skillets today it’s gonna be good foreign you see how all that butter and shortening come up on that side and it’s already started getting a little cooked around the edge you see that um so we’re going to put this in our

Preheated oven and we’re going to bake it about 20 minutes and then we’re going to take it out and I’ll put it in my bowl that I’m going to mix my dressing up in break it up a little bit and let it cool enough

So I can handle it and then when we get to that point I’ll come back and show you what I add to it okay I see we’re back we’ve got a cornbread baked the chicken is done I’ve got it out of the pan and Cooling I took the cornbread

Out broke it up so it could cool we started crumbling it up so now I’m going to fix our celery and onions I’ve got my onions chopped up so now I’m going to do my cylinder and if you have little tender pieces like this from the inside

And with the leaves you use them there’s a lot of flavor in those celery leaves I’ve got oh I cut it up I’ve got about three stalks of celery now these are celery Hearts I’ve trimmed the ends washed them real good and then I cut each piece into

In half so I’ve got a couple of sticks of celery so I’m just going to chop it up and we’re going to add it in there if you my family doesn’t like a whole lot of celery in the dressing we would rather have a little bit of celery just

Enough I don’t pre-cook my celery I don’t pre-cook the onions I figure why should I I’m going to be putting it in the oven and cooking it anyway but if you’re used to cooking it and that’s what your family does by all means cook it I know people that do there’s nothing

Wrong with it I just choose not to yeah so it’s one less step to go through one less pan to wash so we’re gonna put that in there and dump our onion in all our veggies you can’t see can you got all our veggies in there now we’re

Going to break up this chicken foreign shreds but I won’t smaller chunks maybe about like that you want to know you got some chicken in it and it not be stringy and if you get too fine it gets stringy and I don’t like it that way I want to know I’ve got chicken

So it don’t take but a minute now what I’m going to do is I’m going to save back a little bit of this chicken for my gravy and just in the case I don’t have enough I’ve got some extra chicken broth sitting on the counter behind me if I

Don’t have enough in my pot here it’s gonna be good I can’t wait y’all ready for the holidays we are we’re getting ready for them it’s going to be so good look at my big spatula now we gotta stir this big bowl you see how full it is

And that’s the biggest bowl I’ve got if I had any more I’d have to split it up there’s a few bigger pieces of cornbread in there but once we add that broth they’re going to break down after they get wet it’s good for now because we’re going to

Add some seasoning I’m going to add a little bit more salt um I tasted the cornbread and I decided it needed a little more salt and that’s probably that’s not even a teaspoon close to it but not a teaspoon I’m going to owe you sage and poultry

Seasoning now I know sage has Poulter seasoning in it but I like to use a little extra so I’m going to use two teaspoons of that we might come back and add a little let’s add a little more we like the sage and we’ll taste it we

Might add some more I don’t have raw eggs so and we’re going to add some y’all know what I did I just said it backwards I added two teaspoons of sage now I’m adding two teaspoons of my culture seasoning that’s okay I got my jars mixed up it happens when you’re cooking

And this is real cooking do you know what this is a big bowl of dressing all right I think that’s mixed up real good can you see down in that bowl um now let’s add our this pot has I don’t know it’s like four to five cups of broth

So we’re going to start out with a big light out of it and we’re probably going to end up using it all if not some of that extra that I’ve got back there now we’re going to bake this I need to go ahead while I’m thinking about it let

Me turn my oven on so it can be preheating I’m making it for Thanksgiving but we want to go ahead and this is going to be our test run today and we’re going to try it yeah we’re going to use all of this broth you want it way yet you don’t want it

Swimming and bronze but you want it pretty wet oh that’s looking fun I do think I want a little more broth so let me grab the extra I’ve got back here and it is Rich you can actually boil your chicken make you some broth use your chicken for chicken salad or

Uh chicken tacos or enchiladas or anything take your broth put it in a container and freeze it so you’ve got fresh homemade broth anytime you want it oh now can you see the consistency of this see it’s wet it’s dripping off of my spatula it’s wet but it’s not um swimming in liquid

So let’s get our pan get our dish I’ve got a what is this a 9×13 uh something like that it’s a three chord it says so we’re gonna pour this in there I hope it holds it all that’s better y’all are in here with me look you there

Look you there oh it’s a big pan that’s a big dish of dressing so let’s spread it out we’re going to Pat it down now my oven is I’m preheating it to 435 we’re going to bake this I want to say I’m going to start in an hour

And it I may actually have to go a little bit longer this is a lot of dressing but you want it done on the inside everything is cooked you’ve just got to get it hot and on the inside the onions and celery will cook with it so and there’s nothing really in here

You could eat it just like this if you wanted to but we’re not so we’ll slip this in the oven when it gets done preheating and we’re going to come back and make some gravy to go with it okay hang on with me let’s make some gravy to go with that

Dressing and it will be out in just a little bit so we’re going to get our Dre oh our gravy going so get my pan Heating and I’m going to put a little bit of oil that’s um probably a tablespoon maybe just over so get us a little bit of flour

You want about as much flour as fat whether you’re using oil or butter we might put a little butter in it we’ll just have to see I’m going to put salt in it we’re gonna season it and there’s about a teaspoon of salt probably looks like more to you but it’s not

And it takes a couple of minutes to cook that raw flour taste out of it you want to cook it down and I think we’re going to add a touch more flour I said that was a tablespoon of oil that might have been closer to two [Applause] better better better

Make a paste it’s hard to tell you exact recipe for gravy um a lot of it’s just an eyeball you got to see what it looks like and how it feels so let’s see how I got like pasty in there and we just let it cook it in there yeah

So here’s our broth that we had you know the extra we had so we’re going to start pouring it in so typically you’re going to use about twice actually about four times more broth then you do fat and flour then I’ve got close to four cups here

Yeah get some of that good old chicken stuff in there gotta just give it a little extra flavor you can put um if you’ve got some um chicken base put some of that in there if you’ve got some bullion put just a little bit because it’s salty and you want to be careful

With that that’ll just amp up that flavor a little bit and I’ve got some in here so that’s what we’re doing today we’ll get this smooth the day out and bubbling we’re going to put our chicken in it and we’re going to cut up these eggs

Do you put eggs in your gravy for dressing I like it I think it just adds to it to me that makes what we call giblet gravy all right so I’m gonna let that sit here a second and we’re going to break up this chicken

And I’ve got to get a knife to cut up my eggs so let’s just again don’t don’t tear it too fine um but you don’t want too big of chunks in this either now yep that’s the perfect amount of chicken in this gravy for me so let me grab a knife

And we’ll get this um these eggs cut up now if you’re not used to cutting it in your hands don’t please put it on a cutting board I’ve done this for so many years but I don’t want anybody to get hurt I’ve cut it in four pieces y’all seen me do this before

And I’m just gonna cut it up and just let it fall right in that gravy if it has some bigger pieces that’s fine doesn’t matter I boiled four eggs actually I cooked them in my egg cooker and if you haven’t seen it go to my Amazon

Store and I’ve got it on the Amazon store I’ll put a link in the description box below the video and get you one of these they’re not expensive and they’re the best things I put my eggs in putting that yolk in there kind of changes the color too because it’ll kind

Of break up a lot the white won’t let the yolk will I think we’re going to use just about all of this broth I made my I make my gravy for my dress in a little thinner than I do if I’m making gravy for breakfast or to go on biscuits or

Yep let’s go ahead and use the rest of it because we’re going to let that simmer down for just a minute and it’s going to get to the right consistency and actually it’s pretty perfect now and I’m gonna get me a spoon and I’m going to taste it see if we need

To add any more salt and pepper or anything like that if you have other stuff um can’t wait to put this all together and have a plate no it doesn’t need any more salt remember I put a little bit in with flour plus I’ve got a bullion in there

And um it’s got salt in it so this is perfect someone assist this let this sit here and simmer for just another couple of minutes and when that dressing comes out of the oven we’re gonna scoop into it and we’re gonna put a big spoonful of gravy over

It and we’re going to try it out okay stay with me timer just went off on the oven so let’s get out the dressing I could smell it and I’m hungry turn our oven off oh look at here looky here oh my goodness see that stain

Coming off of it oh it’s gonna be so good so let me close this and turn that light off what we’re adding and I’m going to get a serving spoon and we’re going to dip up some of this dressing wow Miss Steffy just came in so she’s going to try it with me

So we’re going to serve us up some you know this is we got oh chicken and dressing and gravy look at those crispy edges there I like crispy edges um can you see what that looks like looky there looky there can you smell oh my goodness oh

Show them what that dressing looks like and then we’re going to drown it in gravy see that oh my all right there’s the best part you know it it’s not dry it’s still moist and that’s what you want I showed up at the right you sure did you help me taste it

Can you get any better than that gravy with eggs in it and butter we didn’t put butter in it oh I was gonna put butter in it that’s okay we don’t need it it’s a little extra gravy won’t hurt us will it let’s see what we got here um

We got a big old bowl of deliciousness tight that’s Thanksgiving that is Thanksgiving in one bite Thanksgiving and one bite y’all I hope you make this you’ve got to try it I know I’m bragging on myself but this is some delicious dressing with the gravy and I’ll put the recipe down in the

Description box for you and I’ll give you instructions on the gravy I can’t give you exact measurements but you’ll be able to eyeball it and uh try this you know we make it at Thanksgiving and Christmas I don’t know why we don’t make it the

Rest of the year once a month at least you know we need to make it more well let’s make a holiday just for dressing we don’t need anything else to go with it hmm I’m gonna go eat my dressing and we’ll see y’all later thanks for

Joining us and I love and appreciate all of you bye-bye Foreign