My Mother's Southern-Style Cornbread Dressing for the Holidays

The Taste of Deep-South Tradition in Every Bite

When Mother died
I thought: now I'll have a death poem.
That was unforgivable.

Yet I've since forgiven myself
as sons are able to do
who've been loved by their mothers.

I stared into the coffin
knowing how long she'd live,
how many lifetimes there are

in the sweet revisions of memory.
It's hard to know exactly
how we ease ourselves back from sadness,

but I remembered when I was twelve,
1951, before the world
unbuttoned its blouse.

I had asked my mother (I was trembling)
If I could see her breasts
and she took me into her room

without embarrassment or coyness
and I stared at them,
afraid to ask for more.

Now, years later, someone tells me
Cancers who've never had mother love
are doomed and I, a Cancer

feel blessed again. What luck
to have had a mother
who showed me her breasts

when girls my age were developing
their separate countries,
what luck

she didn't doom me
with too much or too little.
Had I asked to touch,

Perhaps to suck them,
What would she have done?
Mother, dead woman

Who I think permits me
to love women easily
this poem

is dedicated to where
we stopped, to the incompleteness
that was sufficient

and to how you buttoned up,
began doing the routine things
around the house.

Stephen Dunn, The Routine Things Around the House

Have you ever heard of or wanted to try real Southern Style cornbread dressing?

Have you ever spent a holiday in the Deep South?

If you have, you probably know about the tradition of cornbread dressing. In our family, this recipe wasn’t just a side dish—it was the star of the show. It was my mother’s magnum opus, her great work.

I remember the holidays when I was a young boy growing up in the piney woods of northwest Louisiana. My mother would start preparing for Thanksgiving and Christmas days in advance, crafting her famous cornbread dressing.

We don’t call it stuffing like you hear in other parts of the country; down here we call it “dressing”. For months, she’d gather the best ingredients, all in preparation to make three huge containers filled to the brim with her carefully crafted masterpiece.

It was a tradition for my mother to make the dressing a couple of months in advance and then store it in large Tupperware containers. It would then go into the deep freeze. I learned later on that freezing it and storing it away ages the dressing much like whiskey is aged in wooden casks. The aging adds a depth of flavor that cannot be obtained any other way.

Shortly before her death, I spent a memorable weekend by her side, watching and learning as she poured herself into this recipe, ensuring every detail was perfect. I joined in with her and helped put all her secrets into the recipe that weekend.

Step by step we put it all together so I could see every last detail and commit them all to memory.

Perched from the pedestal of my present age those days and those times now appear pristine as if they have long washed in a current of beauty and grace. I remember her both as a portrait of strength and kindness and a testament of hope's enduring light

In a tribute to her, I’ve kept those memories alive by putting together a simplified version of her cornbread dressing recipe just for you. It’s a tribute to her but scaled down, simplified, and designed so that anyone can make it easily in about an hour.

So, let’s get right to the recipe.

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Ingredients (Makes 4-6 servings)

• 1 cup chopped onions

• 1 cup chopped celery

• 1 large bone-in chicken breast and thigh, or all dark meat if preferred

• 4 large eggs

• Ingredients for cornbread (1 cup yellow cornmeal, 1/2 cup flour, 1 egg, 3/4 cup milk, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt).

• Salt, pepper to taste, and 1 teaspoon thyme (use fresh thyme if available)

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Instructions

1. Prepare Chicken

   • Boil the chicken until fully cooked, reserving all the cooking liquid for later.

2. Make Cornbread

   1. Preheat Your Oven
      Set your oven to 400°F (220°C). Lightly grease an 8-inch cast iron skillet or baking dish. I recommend using a cast iron skillet. It will give your cornbread a thick brown crust, which is caramelized heaven. Bake until the crust is the color of pecans and somewhat thick with a textured bite. You really can’t get the same result with a metal cake dish.

   2. Mix the Dry Ingredients
      In a large bowl, combine 1 cup yellow cornmeal and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, baking powder and baking soda.

   3. Add the Wet Ingredients
      Add 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 3/4 cup milk, and 1 egg to the dry ingredients. Mix until well combined, but do not overmix. The batter will be slightly thick.

   4. Pour and Spread
      Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish or skillet. Use a spatula to spread it evenly.

   5. Bake the Cornbread
      Place the dish in the oven and bake for 25 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

   6. Cool Cornbread
      Carefully invert onto wire rack or plate, and let cool slightly, about 10 minutes, before crumbling into dressing mixture.

3. Cook the Eggs and Vegetables

   • Boil the eggs.

   • Sauté onions and celery in 1/4 cup of oil for about 3 minutes or until soft and translucent.

4. Assemble the Dressing

   • Crumble the cooled cornbread into a 3-quart casserole dish.

   • Add the sautéed onions and celery, coarsely chopped eggs, and chicken (deboned and cut into bite-sized pieces).

   • Pour in the reserved chicken liquid about a cup at a time, mixing until the texture is similar in consistency to a thick cake batter.

5. Season and Bake

   • Season with salt, pepper, and fresh thyme to taste. Mix thoroughly.

   • Bake in a 400°F oven for about 35-40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crusty.

If you try this recipe for the holidays, let me know how it turns out! It’s my honor to share a bit of my mother’s Southern kitchen with you.