Meemaw's Famous Cornbread Dressing (with pics)

I know I'm posting after TG, but promised a few I would so here it is. We make this every TG and Christmas to carry on the tradition of my Meemaw always making this dish since the mid 70's. We've not missed a single year! My son took this to school last year for a TG baking contest and won first place out of 50+ entries.

R.I.P. Norma Lee Lavender

This makes a large portion, can fill up two of the 9x13 baking dishes so adjust your ingredient portions as necessary.

Ingredients

3 boxes Jiffy cornbread mix
1 sleeve of Keebler Club crackers
2 med. onions
1.5 cups celery
1 dozen eggs
2 tablespoons sage
1 tablespoon salt
8 slices of white bread (you will need to toast it)
2 cartons of chicken broth
1 1/3 cups of vitamin D milk
1 stick of salted butter


Directions

Make the cornbread. Not going to post instructions here, the box has them if you aren't familiar with doing it. NOTE: use 2/3 cup of milk for each box rather then the 1/3 it says to use. Your cornbread mixture should look a little runnier than usual before going into the oven.



Put the dry stuff (toast, club crackers) into a food processor first, followed by the wet (onions celery) and mince as shown.









Your cornbread should almost be done, while it finishes continue the prep by whisking the eggs with the sage, salt and pepper.




When cornbread is done, pinch off pieces into a big bowl to help with mixing. You are going to mix it all up, so don't worry about this transfer being overly complex. Since canned chicken broth does not have can chicken fat in it, you will need to melt a stick of butter. Add in the egg mixture, onions, celery, club crackers, toast and melted butter. Begin to add the chicken broth.

NOTE: DO NOT ADD ALL THE BROTH AT ONCE, ADD IT SLOWLY AS YOU MIX ALL INGREDIENTS TOGETHER. The final mixture should very very mushy, so mushy that it literally slides out of the bowl into a baking dish.

....and yes that is a TTU sweatshirt I am wearing in the reflection in the bowl, I lost a bet on the game last night.




Once in the pan ready for the oven, you should not have to spend much time forming the shape, so hopefully you've put enough broth into the mixture that you don't have to. Once all is settled in, put a few splashes of the broth on top (see below) and throw into over @ 350 degrees for 1 hour. Enjoy!

Lastly, this reheats very well so you can make a large amount and enjoy it later.



When it comes out, it should have small remnants of the broth on the top...it will absorb very soon. The inside will be very moist as well.

everyone!