SATURATION it's as much a part of the classic Thanksgiving dinner as cranberry sauce and green bean casserole. Warm, fragrant and delicious, it's comfort food at its best.
Stuffing mix is available at the grocery store, but by ditching the packaged mix and making your own stuffing from scratch, you'll open up a world of delicious possibilities.
Photography by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova
Since bread is its main ingredient, how do you decide which is the best bread to use for the filling? If a recipe simply calls for “1 pound of bread” (with no information about flavor, degree of staleness, or size and shape of cut or torn pieces), what then?
Here's how to determine the best bread for stuffing and how to prepare it.
Best bread for filling: taste
If the filling recipe you've chosen is filled with a lot of toppings (nuts, dried fruit, sausage, oysters, mushrooms), it may be better to choose a basic bread that won't compete with other flavors, such as . plain white OR soft multigrain bread.
Photography by Danielle Sykes; food styling by Yekaterina Boytsova
But if it's a more classic recipe (the one with butter, onions, celery, herbs and a few other things) it's better to choose a more full-flavored bread, like this Bread with apricots, raisins and walnuts OR Sourdough sandwich bread. (Sourdough breads can be a great choice as long as they are not super sour, which can add a strong flavor to the filling.)
Best bread for filling: quality
Beyond taste, you should also consider the texture of your bread. We tested a variety of breads using ours Apple and sausage stuffing recipeand here are our findings:
Artisan-style bread (eg baguettes, focaccia) (recommended): Artisan-style crusty bread are often a good choice for filling; they tend to be innately flavorful due to the longer fermentation, yet this flavor is simple enough that they complement any seasonings or additions.
One thing to watch out for: The more “holy” the bread is, the more likely it will be soft in the filling. Bread with a very open texture is simply not enough to provide the necessary liquid-to-solid balance and often has a high crust-to-crumb ratio. If you're going to use an artisan-style loaf, it should be tight-textured and not super-holey.
Enriched bread (eg croissant, challah): These breads, with their higher fat content, tend to be soft and moist, with textures ranging from close-grained to quite open, depending on which recipe you follow. If your bread is too tight, cut it into smaller cubes (3/4”) and let the filling sit for 15 to 20 minutes before baking, so the bread has more time to absorb the liquid. If its texture is lighter, treat it like sandwich bread (below).
Dense whole grain bread (eg Whole wheat breadwhole grains saplings): This bread is usually very tight and will absorb the filling liquid quite slowly. It's also usually low in fat and so can be a little tough. Even if you rest it before baking, the finished filling will have a soft chewy and “meaty” texture.
Sandwich bread (recommended): A typical pan loaf—whether white, whole wheat, or multigrain—is often recommended for filling, and for good reason: It offers a nice balance of soft texture (thanks to some added fat) and firm texture. When combined with the filling liquid, it softens without falling apart, with each part intact.
Best Bread for Stuffing: Sliced vs. Torn?
When breaking up a loaf of bread for filling, is it better to dice it or tear it into irregular pieces? And anyway, how big should the portions be?
PJ Hamel
Cutting versus tearing is a matter of personal choice. With their larger surface area, torn pieces of bread can provide added crunch to the top of the filling. On the surface, the breadcrumbs make a more “cheap”, rustic-looking filling.
And whether diced or torn, the bigger the piece, the more likely it is to retain some of its original texture – although if the pieces are too big, it can be difficult to eat the filling gracefully. We find that bread sliced or torn into pieces between 3/4″ and 1 1/2″ is ideal.
The Best Bread For Stuffing: How Stale Should It Be?
Many chefs believe that the older the bread, the better it will absorb the filling liquid. Not necessarily! For most stuffing recipes, using hard chunks of stale bread results in a thick and toothy final product, with some bread softened nicely and some too dry to taste. Is there an ideal degree of staleness for filling bread?
yes. We tested “stuck” bread using different times and techniques, and here's what we found:
Fresh bread: Bread that has just been baked (or baked within a day or so and stored airtight) produces a filling that is extremely soft and one-dimensional, in terms of texture.
All the bread left uncovered during the night: The crust and outer layer of this bread will stick a little, but the bread will retain its moist center. It will produce filling that is quite soft.
PJ Hamel
Sliced or torn bread left uncovered overnight (recommended): Cutting or tearing bread into pieces, spreading the pieces on a wire rack OR baking sheetand letting them rest, uncovered, at room temperature overnight produces uniformly stale bread. The pieces will be firmer around the edges than in the center, but they will all dry out somewhat. In the filling, the bread will retain its structure and a little “bite” from the crust, although it will not be chewy at all.
Sliced or shredded bread dried in a slow oven (200°F): This is a faster way to achieve almost the same result as overnight drying. One small difference is that the bread will be crispy all the way through, with no difference between the crust and the inside – which gives a more evenly textured filling.
Cubed or torn bread left uncovered for 3 to 4 days: This bread will be completely stale, hard and dry. In filling, the individual parts retain their hard (unpleasant) center; and any part exposed to the direct heat of the oven above will be firm and crispy.
PJ Hamel
However you decide to dry your bread, note that its outer crust will essentially be drier than its interior (and therefore slightly chewier in the filling). Remove the crust if you want a more uniform filling.
And the best bread for stuffing is…
Based on our testing, here are our recommendations:
Choose a medium-to-fine grain, light-flavored sandwich roll, such as Classic sandwich bread, Honey Bread with Vermont Whole Wheat Flour, Sourdough sandwich breador herb flavored Thanksgiving bread. A simple artisan bread with a fairly fine crumb, like this one White crusty bread without mixwould also be a good choice.
Cut bread into 3/4″ to 1″ cubes or tear into 1″ to 1 1/2″ pieces. Place the prepared bread on a baking sheet or cooling rack and let it rest at room temperature, uncovered, overnight. It's then ready to use in your favorite stuffing recipe.
Are you looking forward to the big gathering this year? Stay ahead of the game with ours Thanksgiving Survival Guide.
Cover photo (Apple and sausage filling) and food styling by Liz Neily.
