Traditional Southern Cornbread Dressing

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There are so many things to love about my holiday classic, Traditional Southern Cornbread Dressing, which includes hard-boiled eggs. In addition to the taste, which is divine, you can make this southern-style, old-fashioned Thanksgiving dressing recipe ahead, and it freezes beautifully.

This classic recipe, which includes both hard-boiled and raw eggs, is reminiscent of the homemade dressing or stuffing you probably remember your grandmother preparing.

In the South, cornbread dressing recipes have been passed down through generations, and there are almost as many variations as there are Thanksgiving Turkey Recipes.

A large white bowl of cornbread dressing.

Besides hard-boiled and raw eggs, the one constant in most of these old-fashioned recipes is butter! And, this recipe calls for, hold on to your hat, two full sticks of butter! And it’s the butter that makes this dressing so moist and flavorful!

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Why you will love this recipe:
Ingredient notes:
Step-by-step directions:
Recipe FAQs:
Sharon’s tips:
More Thanksgiving side dish recipes:
📋 Recipe:
Traditional Southern Cornbread Dressing

Why you will love this recipe:

Besides being easy, like my Easy Cornbread Dressing with Sausage, you can make both the cornbread and the dressing over a month ahead of the big day and freeze it. Or you can make both a day or two before, either way works.
This dressing has a crispy crust over a fabulously moist, savory, and flavorful filling.
This recipe is versatile; depending on your family’s likes, you can add dried fruit like cranberries, fresh fruit like apples, or nuts, like roasted pecans to make it your own.

Ingredient notes:

Dressing ingredients includiing cornbread, chicken stock and green bell pepper.

Cornbread: my recipe for Southern Cornbread with Buttermilk, works perfectly with this recipe, or if you need a gluten-free recipe, try my Old Fashioned Cornbread which doesn’t contain any flour.
Butter: unsalted; if you use salted butter, reduce the amount of salt you add.
Onion: I like Vidalias, but any sweet onion works.
Green bell pepper: adds color and a touch of sweetness.
Celery: it wouldn’t be dressing without celery.
Hard-boiled and raw eggs: the raw eggs bind everything together, and the hard-boiled eggs make it a classic.
Poultry seasoning: is full of sage and thyme. You can substitute one teaspoon of sage and one-half teaspoon of either thyme or marjoram. To use fresh herbs, double the amounts.
Chicken stock: You can use purchased or homemade chicken stock. If you wait to make the dressing on the big day, add your turkey drippings to the stock.
Kosher salt and ground black pepper: two flavor enhancers that make everything better. I have listed a suggested amount of salt, but how much you will need depends on how salty your stock is, whether you use unsalted butter or not, and your personal preference.

Step-by-step directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
Add the butter to a large skillet over low heat. Stir in the onions, celery, and green bell pepper.

Cook the vegetables for ten minutes or until they are soft. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool.

While the vegetables are cooking, crumble the cornbread in a large bowl and add the hard-boiled eggs, two cups of chicken broth, and the poultry seasoning.

Chopped hard boiled eggs, celery and cornbread in a bowl.

Add the cooked vegetables and butter to the crumbled cornbread and gently mix everything together. You can use a spoon, but your hands work best for this task.
Add the kosher salt and ground black pepper. Taste and add additional salt and pepper if you think it needs it.
Add the beaten raw eggs and mix well.
Don’t be alarmed if the mixture is soupy. If it’s not, add up to one more cup of chicken broth, a little at a time, until it is about the consistency of a thick cornbread batter.
Pour the mixture into a well-greased 9 x 13-inch baking dish or a two-quart baking dish.
Bake uncovered for 45 to 50 minutes or until the dressing is set and the top is golden brown and crispy. Serve immediately.

Southern cornbread dressing in a white baking dish.

Recipe FAQs:

What’s the difference between stuffing and dressing?

These days the terms are used interchangeably. Whether it’s called stuffing or dressing mostly has to do with where you are from. In the south, we usually refer to it as dressing.

Originally, dressing referred to a bread mixture that was cooked outside the turkey in a separate dish. If the bread mixture was stuffed inside the turkey, it was called stuffing.

Today folks rarely stuff their birds anymore because the stuffing has to come up to 165 °F to be safe to eat. By the time this happens, the turkey is overdone.

Can you make it ahead of time?

Why, yes, you can! It’s even better if it sits overnight before baking. You can make it up to two days ahead and store it in the refrigerator before baking. Or, you can freeze it for up to two months.

Let it thaw completely in the fridge overnight before cooking.

Is this recipe gluten-free?

If you need to make a gluten-free dressing, I recommend that you either purchase gluten-free cornbread or use my easy gluten-free Old-Fashioned Southern Buttermilk Cornbread recipe to make your cornbread.

Sharon’s tips:

If you get in a bind and run out of time to make cornbread for the dressing, around the holidays, most grocery stores and bakeries sell pre-made cornbread or corn muffins, which you can use instead of making your own. Just try to avoid cornbread with sugar added.
My easy Traditional Southern-Style Cornbread recipe is what I use when I make this dressing.
To make this dressing gluten-free, use my recipe for gluten-free Old-Fashioned Southern Buttermilk Cornbread. It doesn’t contain any flour and is made with just cornmeal.
If making ahead, cover and refrigerate the unbaked cornbread dressing for up to three days or freeze for up to two months. Let it thaw overnight before baking.
It’s best to make or purchase your cornbread two days or so ahead of making the dressing to allow it to dry out.
Be sure to taste the dressing before adding the raw eggs to see if you need to add more poultry seasoning, salt, or pepper.
Check your dressing about halfway through the cooking time. If it starts looking dry, sprinkle a few more tablespoons of chicken stock evenly over the top.
If you have trouble peeling hard boiled eggs, check out my post, Perfect Easy to Peel Hard Boiled Eggs. Or, it’s perfectly fine to purchase your eggs already cooked and peeled.