Gluten free stuffing has long been a holy grail recipe for myself and my family. I’ve probably tried two dozen different approaches and I’m happy to say that I have finally come up with one. The secret to this is a new product from Bob’s Red Mill – a Gluten Free Cornbread Mix that is better than any other I’ve ever seen. Please note that even tho the one I’ve linked to on Amazon is currently under review, you want this one, not the one in the yellow packaging.

In this recipe we’re first going to back the cornbread and then we’re going to convert it to stuffing suitable for being put into a turkey or chicken or cooked separately as a side dish.

Note: My version of the process to make the cornbread differs from the Bob’s Red Mill but that’s because I followed their instructions and they don’t work as well.

Ingredients

Cornbread Ingredients:

  • 1 20 oz package Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Cornbread Mix
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups milk

Stuffing Ingredients:

  • 1 batch gluten free cornbread cut into 1/4” pieces
  • 8 oz bacon diced into 1/2” pieces
  • 4 onions diced
  • 6 cloves minced garlic
  • 3 cups chicken broth (this needs to be measured out and ready to go in a measuring cup)

Steps for the Cornbread

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
  2. In kitchen aid mixer combine all cornbread ingredients and blend.
  3. Grease a 10x13 baking pan and pour in the cornbread mix. Level the mix in the pan with a spatula since the mix will be very thick. Bake until golden brown which should be 25 minutes.
  4. Leave the oven going at the end – you’ll need it again right away.

Steps for the Stuffing

  1. Change the oven temperature to 400.
  2. Take the stuffing from the preceding step and cut it into 1/2 to 1/4” square chunks. This is a fairly tedious task. Personally I would take the cornbread out of the pan and cut it in half horizontally and then scoring the cornbread in a 1/4: grid. This should result in a large number of small cubes. If you make the cubes too large, you will NOT like the result - it won’t be a stuffing, it will be cubes of cornbread flavored like stuffing. Disclaimer - I did this the first time around.
  3. Spread the cornbread chunks across one or two cookie sheets and toast them until crisp for 15 to 20 minutes. If you have to use two cookie sheets then you’ll likely need to rotate the cookie sheets half way thru so each one gets some time on top.
  4. In an oven safe cooking dish or very large all steel / cast iron frying pan, cook the bacon, over medium heat, until crisp – 5 to 7 minutes.
  5. Pour off all but 3 tbsp bacon fat and cook the onions in the pan until soft – 3 to 5 minutes.
  6. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds to one minute while moving it around in the pain the whole time. Garlic burns very easily and it tastes quite bad when it burns so keep it moving around. When you can smell it then its done.
  7. Add the chicken broth immediately and it will stop the garlic from burning. Then add the bacon. Using a spatula or wooden spoon scrape the bottom of the pan to get the burned bits off the bottom.
  8. Add cornbread cubes and stir them around so that they absorb the chicken broth. Cover the pan with a lid and let sit for 10 minutes. After sitting, stir the cubes again to make sure that the chicken broth was picked up by all the cubes of bread.
  9. At this point you either stuff a bird with the stuffing or cook it on its own. If you’re cooking the stuffing on its own then remove the lid and cook it in the 400 degree oven until top is burned and crisp – this will take 30 minutes.