Favorite Easy Sausage Cranberry Stuffing Recipe

When it’s time to bring something memorable to the holiday table, this sausage cranberry stuffing recipe will be your favorite go-to. Made with fresh crusty bread that turns golden brown and mingles perfectly with the savory sausage, cranberries, onion, celery, and fragrant herbs. It’s our family’s must-make recipe, with a sweet-savory balance that people will talk about long after the meal.

This recipe is a cherished part of our family’s simple homemade Thanksgiving – you can see the other recipes (and decor) we use on the All Things Thanksgiving page.

You know those recipes that are probably not the best for you, but are so delicious they take a place of honor at every holiday meal? Welcome to this amazing stuffing recipe made with sausage, cranberry, and fresh bread.

We eat healthy the majority of the time in order to have special dishes like this. Thanksgiving just wouldn’t be the same without it – and I’m hoping by sharing this, you’ll join us, too, since this recipe really is incredible.

While this is a stuffing recipe that you could actually stuff a turkey with, I’ve never done that, so it’s more of a dressing you bake on the side. I never know whether to call this recipe a stuffing or dressing, so most of the time I alternate back and forth!

What you call it doesn’t matter though – we simply call this our family’s favorite holiday side dish – one we look forward to all year.

Why not stuff a turkey?

I never stuff the turkey because it’s a pain, frankly. It also takes longer to cook a turkey when stuffed and some experts have said it’s hard to get the stuffing cooked safely all the way through without the breast turning out dry.

Also, stuffing cooked inside a turkey is actually too moist and clumpy for us and is one of the reasons my kids didn’t like it before I started making this. When you bake this dressing in a shallow pan it produces a wonderfully crisp, crunchy top that is perfectly contrasted with the moist interior. Each bite is full of savory onion, sausage and homemade bread with just a touch of sweet from cranberries and a super secret non-traditional ingredient.

Here’s the unstuffed turkey recipe I make the most – it produces an amazing gravy!

Recipe Ingredients

This stuffing recipe is based on a much more decadent version that Brian’s cousin is known for in our extended family, but with slight changes that keep the flavor while making it a tad bit healthier.

• Bread: The key ingredient, I believe, is using a quality bread – no dried, old packaged little cubes here. It’s wonderful with Easy Artisan Bread or Easy Sourdough Artisan Bread but you don’t have to use homemade bread, any good crusty bread will work. And I don’t bake the cubes or leave it out for hours to dry, either – just a bit of airing while I make the other ingredients. I think fresher is better.
• Aromatics: The classic stuffing celery and onions are included here, along with garlic and herbs.
• Liquids: The recipe gets it’s moistness and flavor from butter and oil as well as chicken or turkey broth.
• The Extras: Cranberries are my favorite, but other fruits would work, too, if you’d like – think chopped apples or pears or dried blueberries. And then there’s the very unusual stuffing ingredient, brown sugar.

Wait – don’t leave! Trust me, I know it’s super odd to be adding sugar to stuffing, especially when we’re trying to cut down on sugar. But I promise it makes this dish so much better that the normal stuffing – and again, it’s a once or twice a year thing, so this is the place it’s okay to splurge a bit.

How to make this delicious stuffing recipe

Step 1: The first thing to do is to cut up a loaf of bread into cubes, spread them out on a baking sheet, and set them aside to dry a bit while you continue with the recipe.

Step 5: Scrape into a buttered shallow pan before baking 35-45 minutes until it’s crispy and browned on top.

To Make This Recipe Ahead

This is easy to make ahead of time and not worry about it on the holiday. You can make it head a few days and refrigerate it until baking, or you can freeze it for longer storage.

• Refrigerate: After filling the pan with the stuffing mixture, cover it tightly and store in the fridge for up to 2 days.
• Freeze: Make the dressing but don’t bake it. Let it cool and then freeze in the pan covered tightly in plastic. Thaw overnight before baking.
• Bake: There are two options to bake after freezing: 1) For a drier, fluffier stuffing, stir, place it in a baking dish (if it wasn’t frozen in the dish), cover with foil, and bake according to directions (remove foil for browning if desired). 2) For a more moist stuffing, drizzle with a bit of extra broth, cover with foil and bake. Remove the foil (option to dot it with butter) and place back in the oven to brown the top.

This is definitely a case of all the parts coming together to make something so much more than bread, onions, and celery would make.

And so on – it’s not just me, this really is the best stuffing and I’ll never go back to regular old stuffing! Please give it a try – it just might become your family’s favorite, too!

I hope you love this stuffing recipe as much as we do – if you make it, be sure to leave a rating and review so I know how you liked it!

More Delicious & Easy Holiday Recipes

• White Wine Roasted Turkey-with Delicious Gravy
• Easy Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls
• Amazing Garlic Green Beans
• Make Ahead Crumb-Topped Apple Pie (freeze & bake from frozen!)

This recipe has been updated – it was originally published December 2013.