Homemade Stovetop Stuffing

I am very much a scratch cooking most of the time. One thing that has always been a concern is coming across a recipe I want to try that calls for a convenience packaged food that in most cases I would never purchase. The bottom line is two fold. First I don't like using convenience packaged food that tends to be heavily laden in excess salt, sugar, artificial flavour and colour as well as preservatives. Second, I want to make a recipe with foods I have on hand rather than make a mad dash to the grocery store. One ingredient that I've come across in some recipes is StoveTop® stuffing.

Bread Prep

I decided to make a clone recipe of StoveTop® stuffing. After all it could not be that difficult since the ingredients are quite simple. I honestly don't know how much a box StoveTop® stuffing is going for so I'm going to guess $1.50 per box. Here I made pretty much the same amount as 3 boxes for about $1 or 33¢ each but that was because I was working with store bought rolls rather than homemade bread. Had I used homemade bread the cost would be more in the range of 10¢ per jar of stuffing.

Method: I cut the dinner rolls into cubes then baked at 180ºC/350ºF until golden brown. Then I let the cubes cool.

Ingredients

Aside of the left over dinner rolls I used sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, dried onion flakes and homemade poultry seasoning. This combination is directly related to the way I make stuffing in poultry. Additional ingredients are dried parsley and instant bouillon mix. I used a tsp of parsley per jar but no instant bouillon to keep the sodium level low and since I want to use homemade stock when making the stuffing I didn't want an actual meat flavour being added. This will allow me to make any flavour of stuffing I want. This is also a great way to use up homemade bread that is just on the stale side.

Homemade Stovetop Stuffing

This will be a nice homemade pantry product! Now I can make a couple of those recipes I want to try using the convenience of my homemade version! It should substitute nicely. The homemade stovetop stuffing is quite easy to make. After the toasted bread is cooled I filled 3 - 1 L canning jars with the bread. I added a sprinkling of sea salt, couple of twists of fresh ground pepper, 1 tsp dried parsley, 1 tbsp poultry seasoning and 1 tbsp dried minced onions. Then I vacuum sealed the jars and wrote the instructions on the lid. When I want to use a jar I will add 1 tbsp butter and 1½ cup stock of choice.