Cornbread dressing recipes are a staple of Southern holiday dinners, especially Thanksgiving. They’re also the subject of one of the more common cooking terminology debates. Dressing (that isn’t for a salad) looks a whole lot like stuffing, and the two are regularly confused by those who don’t understand why they’re called what they’re called. If you want to get technical about it, stuffing is a mixture that’s literally stuffed into the cavity of a bird before roasting. Dressing is stuffing, just baked in a pan instead of roasted inside a bird. The word dressing may have come into use during the Victorian era as a more elegant form of stuffing.

However, the real difference may be regional. That’s because there are Southern cooks who stuff birds with dressing before roasting them together, and non-Southern cooks who bake their stuffing recipes. The main dividing line appears to be whether the recipe is from the southeast United States or elsewhere.

So, how to make cornbread dressing? You’ll bake a crumbly batch of cornbread, then bake the crumbs a second time with additional ingredients. Other than waiting for the cornbread to cool, this Southern dressing recipe doesn’t take much time or effort to complete.

Southern Dressing Ingredients

Cornbread:

• All-purpose flour: Flour in traditional Southern cornbread is controversial, but this recipe uses it to make the bread a little less dense.
• Cornmeal: It wouldn’t be cornbread without cornmeal.
• Baking powder: There’s no yeast in this recipe, so baking powder is what helps the cornbread rise.
• Eggs: Eggs function as a binder here, holding the ingredients together, as well as adding structure. Use large eggs in this recipe, because two of them provide the right amount of “liquid” ingredient when combined with the buttermilk.
• Buttermilk: Buttermilk reacts with the baking powder to make the risen bread less dense, as well as making the flavor a bit richer. Baking powder doesn’t necessarily need buttermilk to activate, but the combination here makes the bread lighter and easier to crumble.

Dressing:

• Onion: Use a regular medium-sized onion here; it will mellow out when cooked and lend a slightly sweet yet still savory flavor to the final dish.
• Celery ribs: Like the onion, celery provides a lot of flavor (there’s a reason it’s part of mirepoix and the Cajun Holy Trinity), softening as it cooks in oil and again during the final round of baking.
• Eggs: The eggs here provide binding and structure like they did for the cornbread. Use large eggs only.
• Condensed cream of chicken soup: Use condensed soup here, because that helps thicken the dressing mixture. The chicken lends flavor, and the soup makes the final dish creamy.
• Poultry seasoning: Save yourself time and trouble by adding your favorite poultry seasoning for flavor instead of measuring out individual spices and herbs. This also complements the flavor of the chicken soup (and broth), as well as whatever bird you’re serving this dish with.
• Chicken broth: Without the broth, the dressing mixture would be too thick and dry. Broth adds more chicken flavor in addition to some much-needed moisture that allows for easier mixing and a moister result.

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