Sausage Apple Cornbread Stuffing

This is my favorite stuffing or dressing recipe, hands down. A smattering of veggies is bound together with cornbread stuffing and heightened with the addition of sausage, apples and fennel. If you’ve never dealt with fennel (also known as anise) bulbs it’s a great way to introduce your family to this very unique and not to be missed vegetable. It has a soft, almost licorice-like flavor that is mellowed by cooking and plays very well with the sage notes of the sausage and a touch of sweetness that echoes that of the cooked apple. The other veggies in the mix lend texture, color and classic flavors to this main-dish worthy side. It also works just fine with vegetarian sausage in the same amount–just brown it in a non-stick skillet and you’ll save a ton of fat and allow the non-meat eaters at your table to share in a fantastic dish.

Sausage Apple Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients:
-1 pound bulk sausage (pork, turkey, doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not in casings)
-1 large or two small onions, chopped
-1 large or two smal bulbs fennel, trimmed of fronts and stems and chopped
-4-6 ribs celery, chopped
-2 handfuls shredded carrots or 2 medium carrots, shredded or chopped fine
-4 granny smith apples, peeled and diced
-5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
-1 bag Pepperidge Farm Cornbread Stuffing mix (or some other similar one)

Directions:
Brown the sausage in a large saucepan over medium heat, breaking it into marble-sized bits and cooking until there is no pink left. Drain sausage of as much grease as you can and remove from the pan and place in a bowl. Pour off remaining grease from the pan and toss in onion, fennel, celery and carrots, if using chopped and not shredded. Cook the vegetables over medium-high heat until browned and nearly cooked through. Remove vegetables from the pan and toss in the apples. Sautee the apples until the edges are browned but the apples aren’t cooked through. Pour the broth into the pan and allow it to come to a boil with the apples. In a large (VERY LARGE) bowl combine the stuffing mix, sausage and vegetables, and shredded carrots if using, and toss to combine. When the broth has come to temperature pour it and the apples over the stuffing mixture and stir to incorporate the broth and apples into the stuffing. Add more broth if the mixture is too dry. As there is nothing left that isn’t cooked, the stuffing could easily be eaten at this point, but to finish it off in true thanksgiving fashion, load the whole lot of it into a greased 9×13 pan and bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes. This will brown the top a bit and get the edges a little crusty, as baked stuffings should be.

Notes:
-The whole thing can be made up to the point where you’d bake it and then thrown in the fridge. Just keep in mind that it will take longer to all come to temperature in the oven that way and it will need some extra time. No worries if it doesn’t all heat up though–there is nothing in it that hasn’t already been cooked and no eggs to worry about not setting up.
-This may well taste fine if you use regular bread crumb stuffing mixes and not cornbread. I just prefer cornbread myself and I think it goes best with the apple.
-This recipe makes a heaping amount, even for a 9×13 casserole. You can probably still fit a half batch in a 9×13 and have it look like a full batch, or split it into multiple casserole dishes if that suits you or you need to reserve one half for meat and one for vegetarian.
-If you don’t like vegetarian sausage, just add another fennel bulb or two to the mix and about a tablespoon of rubbed sage to make up the flavor differences.