Cranberry, Sausage, and Mushroom Stuffing

After I posted my unique stuffing round-up a few days ago, it dawned on me — I’ve never even made stuffing! So, I decided I would try my hand at it. I wanted to make something a little bit different than all the recipes I looked at, so, I thought it would be fun to cook the sausage, onions, mushrooms, garlic, etc. in cranberry sauce! It seemed like a bit of a risk, but I thought it was definitely worth trying.

Turns out, the cranberry flavored the sausage quite nicely, and I was actually able to eliminate the use of butter in this dish, as I sauteed the onions, mushrooms, and garlic in the cranberry sauce as well. You can definitely add celery to this dish if you want, to make it more “traditional” but I didn’t miss it one bit! I loved the addition of the mushrooms, though (in case you can’t tell by now — I love mushrooms!)

This stuffing turned out really yummy, and we almost could have eaten it as our main dish for dinner! While it definitely wasn’t the most traditional stuffing (I mean, how many stuffing recipes have chili powder in them?!), it still had elements to it that definitely yelled Thanksgiving. It was really easy to make, too, which is always important in my book.

In this recipe, I used Shirley J’s Chicken Slow Cooker mix, even though this wasn’t a slow cooker dish. I often use it to replace chicken broth in dishes, and if anything, it just makes it more delicious. However, in case you don’t have this mix sitting around, chicken broth will do just great 🙂

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Cranberry, Sausage, and Mushroom Stuffing

Yield: 10

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Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups day old bread, cut into small cubes (I used a multi-grain loaf from Smith's. For best results, tear up the bread and let it sit overnight in open air)
• 6 ounces sausage
• 1/4 cup cranberry sauce
• 1/4 cup diced onion
• 1/2 cup mushrooms
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 egg
• 1 cup chicken broth, or prepared Shirley J chicken slow cooker mix
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

1. Spray a large skillet with cooking spray (such as Pompeian Grapeseed Spray.)
2. Place sausage and cranberry sauce in the skillet, and brown sausage, breaking it up into small pieces.
3. Once sausage is cooked, add in mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Cook until tender.
4. Add in spices, and cook another two minutes.
5. In a pie dish or similar sized glass cooking dish, arrange the pieces of day old bread.
6. Pour sausage mixture over the bread and toss.
7. Mix together an egg and chicken broth. Pour over the top of the bread and sausage evenly.
8. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, covered in tin foil. After thirty minutes, sprinkle with parmesan cheese and cook an additional 20-30 minutes.