Easy Cornbread Dressing Recipe: Stuffing with Apples and Pecans

This is a super quick and easy recipe for stuffing, or as we call it in the South, dressing. Actually, this dish is more like chicken and dressing, but I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to discern between stuffing and dressing. I mean, it used to be easy to tell the difference. People put stuffing inside a turkey or other food, and dressing was made in a separate pan. Nowadays, people call stuffing that’s cooked separately “stuffing,” too. What’s a cook to do? Is it a stuffing recipe, or a dressing recipe?

Cornbread dressing is huge in the South, and I’ll bet there are thousands of cornbread dressing recipes floating around. I use several different ones, myself. For Christmas and Thanksgiving, or on other special occasions, I make my old fashioned cornbread dressing recipe, which takes a lot of time. I make my own homemade cornbread for that, and I also make my own chicken stock. I don’t do either of those things for my easy cornbread stuffing recipe. If I did, I wouldn’t honestly be able to include the word “easy.” Really, this is a quick and easy recipe!

One of the first things I learned as a Southern girl was how to make cornbread dressing. In theory, it’s pretty simple: cornbread, onions, celery, chicken stock, and seasonings. The biggest problem most people have with making cornbread stuffing or dressing has to do with the consistency. Some people don’t use enough stock in their dressing recipes, so the dressing turns out too stiff. You shouldn’t be able to slice dressing with a knife. On the other hand, if too much stock is used in dressing recipes, the results will be too soupy.

No matter what you want to call this – an easy stuffing recipe, a dressing recipe, a chicken and stuffing recipe, or a chicken and dressing recipe – it really doesn’t matter. It’s a great dish, and you might want to add it to your Thanksgiving recipes. Quite honestly, it’s almost as good as homemade stuffing made from scratch! Notice I said “almost.” I don’t think this easy stuffing recipe is as good as my cornbread dressing recipe, but this one is a lot easier to make, and it’s definitely yummy! Also, I can make it on the spur of the moment, without having to bake cornbread and boil chicken backs for stock like I do when I make my southern dressing recipe for Thanksgiving.

With this easy cornbread stuffing recipe, you begin with a big head start. You don’t have to mix up the cornbread and wait for it to bake, and you don’t have to boil chicken parts to make the stock or broth. This cornbread dressing or cornbread stuffing can be put together in just a few minutes, so it can easily be made on a hectic weeknight. It’s actually good enough, however, to serve any time. It’s great with baked chicken, fried chicken, pork chops, ham, turkey, and pork roast.

I used this easy stuffing recipe tonight. Since it has so much chicken in it, I didn’t cook another meat. I served the stuffing with Brussels sprouts, glazed sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce. My stuffing recipe made enough stuffing to feed four adults and three small children. I used tart baking apples in the stuffing, along with pecans. I think walnuts would be great in the recipe, too.

Holle’s Apple-Pecan Chicken and Dressing recipe

What you’ll need:

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium apples, chopped

½ cup chopped or broken pecans

½ stick butter

2 boxes cornbread stuffing mix (like Stove Top, but I used the cheap generic kind)

2 cans chicken broth

3 eggs, beaten

¼ cup water

2 cans chicken (12.5-ounce cans), with liquid

Directions: Place onion, apples, pecans, and butter in a microwave-safe dish and heat until onion just begins to get soft. This took about three minutes in my microwave oven.

Dump both boxes of stuffing mix into a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. Add heated onion, apple, pecans, and butter. Pour both cans of chicken broth over mixture. When ingredients in dish have cooled slightly, add eggs, water, and chicken. Stir well.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.