Bored of old flavors or curious what else bread can be? Check out this Stuffing with mushroom recipe to give chance to culinary wannabes!

Stuffing is an edible mixture of ingredients that supposed to be filled into a cavity, which should explain why it is called stuffing, then cooked along with its carrying material.

If the stuffing is made up of starch and vegetables its shell frequently involves some sort of meat like chicken, turkey or pork. Using vegetables such as zucchini boat, stuffed poblano peppers, or stuffed cabbage isn’t unheard of either but such occasions mostly require meat as a filling and not the other way around.

Nowadays when stuffing isn’t actually stuffed into anything though but laid bare on a casserole dish the term dressing is starting to take hold around many dinner tables, which actually makes some sense.

The history of stuffing reaches back beyond memories of men or women. We know that ancient Romans were really fond of stuffing and stuffed dormouse in particular but beyond that, there is little left for us to provide proof about when our stuffing loving nature was awakened.

Originally, stuffing was meant to use up ingredients that were provided subpar culinary experience on their own. Giblets, meat with connecting tissue or stale bread weren’t the most popular options when prepping a dinner. Once someone figured out the art of stuffing though many of the lesser quality ingredients was given a second chance for the spotlight instead of frowningly chomping on them or worse throwing them to the dogs.

The only throwback of such upcycling though, is when the resulting products get better than the prime quality original. Then we start using extra energy of making quality ingredients subpar on purpose so we can apply methods to juice it up to be better again.

Of course, cookbooks nowadays, in the era of plenty and ready-made ingredients, are filled with such recipes. It rarely crosses our mind that the fairly elaborate preparations of recipes such as fajitas , fish stew, or potato skins are not developed to make our life harder but because the original ingredients required people to go through various steps to make them edible.

Most likely the prime example of such senseless but tasty endeavor is stuffing with sausage which would most likely never occurred to anyone if they had to make their own bread and stuff their own sausage from scratch.

Luckily, these days we can get everything ready from the shelves because the 70’ were so considerate, that introduced us to readymade stuffing reducing our need to rely on stale bread or potatoes for dinner and nudging us a step closer to nutritionally scarce food and scurvy.

Not all stuffing made equal though. Food from fresh ingredients made with care and a dash of love beats any pre-packaged food given that our taste buds haven’t been reconditioned by artificial flavoring and sweeteners yet.

Beefing up our regular stuffing with additional ingredients like mushrooms is an easy way to take our stale or soon would be stale bread to the next level. The only question is whether we are willing to.

Ingredients

2 cups / 500g Bread (cubed) (stale will hold its shape better during the preparation process)
2 tablespoons / 30g Cooking oil or butter
2½ cups / 400g Onion (diced)
2 cups / 200g Celery (diced)
1 teaspoon / 5g Salt to taste
2 cloves / 6g Garlic (finely cut)
5 cups / 500g Mushroom (sliced)
3 tablespoons / 12g Parsley (freshly chopped)
1 teaspoon / 0.5 Sage (dried)
1 tablespoon / 3.5g Rosemary (freshly chopped)
1 tablespoon / 2g Thyme (freshly chopped)
3¼ cups / 750g Water (only if bread is dried or stale)
2 medium / 100g Eggs

How to make Stuffing with mushrooms

We can use either stale or completely dried out bread. Dried bread is much harder to cut up so if we have bread for the sole purpose of making stuffing then cutting it up in advance will save us some effort and time. Best part of the stuffing is the crunchy crust so choose bread with plenty of crust to start with, like french baguette, bread rolls or similar stuff.
Heat oil in a skillet and sauté (stir-fry) diced onion, celery and salt until glassy / translucent look, about 5 minutes.
Lower the heat to medium low then slowly caramelize the onion and celery until it is browned, about 15 – 20 minutes.
Mix in the mushrooms then stir fry until browned then stir in the garlic.
Cook until the garlic starts to get fragrant. Take it off heat and let it cool a bit.
Beat eggs and water together.
In a big bowl, mix bread, freshly chopped parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, the freshly prepared onion with mushrooms and egg/water mixture.
If we decide to use stuffing to stuff something with it, this is the time. Secure the holes with wooden toothpicks, cocktail sticks or small skewers. Check out: Chicken Stuffing Recipe
Or just carry on and place the stuffing into an ovenproof dish.
Or make them into balls. If short of bread, use some breadcrumbs as an emergency option.
Roast it for about 20 – 35 minutes in a 425°F/220°C oven.
If we have a broiler, it can be even faster but it needs some experimenting with the rack position and heat, as the top can scorch quite easily.

Enjoy!

F.A.Q.

Why do people put eggs in their stuffing?

Eggs are used as a binding agent to keep all the other ingredients in their place. Of course this is only trully necassary if we plan to form our stuffing to balls or other shapes. It also provides protein to an otherwise nutritionally poor dish.

What gives stuffing its flavor?

Stuffing gets its flavor from spices, herbs and additional vegetables that are used during the preparation process such as celery and onions.

Should stuffing be moist before baking?

Stuffing should be moist before baking or more precisly roasting because the bread is already baked and all we do is drying it out again in the hot oven.

Should stuffing be covered when baking?

It depends on the temperature and the placement of the baking dish in the oven. If it is put too close to the top with heat set to a too high temperature the top can burn black while the bottom isn’t heated through at all.