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Ontario, Canada
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
Cook ingredients that you are used to cooking by other techniques, such as fish, chicken, or hamburgers. In other words be comfortable with the ingredients you are using.
--Bobby Flay

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

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 for stovetop stuffingBread 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 for stovetop stuffingIngredients

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 stuffingHomemade 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.


9 food lovers commented:

cassandrasmom said...

What a great idea!!!! I can't wait to try making my own homemade stuffing mix.

Inspired by eRecipeCards said...

great post... I just need a bigger pantry

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Cassandrasmom :) I think it will be a useful product for the times you might want a different side. Have fun making up a few jars.

Garden Gnome said...

You stick with me Dave I will have you building a nice walk-in pantry or converting a bedroom to a pantry :)

StyleHippo said...

The pictures of your food look delicious... yum tum yummy

Becky said...

This is a great idea! I have done a lot of canning with a water bath canner, but how do you vacuum seal these jars?

Garden Gnome said...

Hi Becky :) The jars are vacuum sealed using a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer and jar attachment.

Anonymous said...

I'm excited to try this....however, do you have another idea to keep the stuffing besides vacuum sealing jars? I have a bag vacuum sealer but doesn't have a jar adapter. Thanks in advance!

Mama Mary said...

Anonymous, you can buy a jar sealer attachment for your bag vacuum sealer. I bought mine for around $20. The hose for the adapter fits into a port on your vacuum sealer. It's a great way to keep produce/a week's worth of salads for lunch at work/after school pre-cut snacks fresher, too!