Apple Sausage Stuffing

We aren’t huge turkey fans but we love stuffing! Whether you are serving a turkey, roast, chicken or lamb. The sweetness of the apples is a perfect compliment to the savoury Italian sausage and earthy sage. Like a lot of my recipes this one is completely adaptable recipe and you can sub your favourite ingredients.
Save yourself some time and use a food processor to chop up all the veggies.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Keyword holiday, stuffing, thanksgiving sides

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 15

Bake Time 40

Equipment

9x13 baking dish/pan
Food processor optional

Ingredients

1 loaf crusty Italian or French bread cubed
3-4 mild Italian sausages
2 carrots peeled and finely chopped
2 celery stalks finely chopped
1 onion finely chopped
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 fresh sage leaves finely chopped *
1 cup mayonnaise
3 apples unpeeled and chopped
2 tbsp butter
2 cups chicken broth
2 tsp dried sage

Instructions

If possible leave bread out for a day or 2 as stale bread works best for stuffing. If you can’t do that, slice bread into 1 inch pieces and lay them on a baking tray. Bake at 300 for 10-15 minutes. This will dry them out a bit and make it easier to cut into cubes. Once cubed place in a large bowl.
Turn oven temperature up to 350 degrees
Heat frying pan with a little olive oil. Squeeze the sausage out of the casings and into pan. Cook on medium for 5 minutes or until just about cooked through breaking it up as it cooks. Remove sausage from pan and leaving as much oil as possible in the skillet.
Add chopped vegetables including the sage into the frying pan with the sausage drippings, salt, and pepper. If pan seems to dry add a little olive oil. Sauté for ablut 7 minutes On medium low until mixture begins to soften. Set aside.
Add 2 tablespoons butter to pan with chopped apples and cook for 5 minutes on medium
In a very large bowl, mix everything with the bread cubes adding 2 tsp dried sage, the mayo and chicken broth. Place in a greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Can be made the day before up to this point covered and refrigerated.