I love Thanksgiving for so many reasons! I love the Fall flavours of pumpkin, and cranberries, and squash, I love the Fall weather that calls out for comforting savoury foods, but what I love MOST, is the gathering of Family for our multiple Thanksgiving Meals (we have in-laws) AND although I’m in Canada my Mother and Step-Mother are both American, so we do BOTH… one in October and one in November. Over the years, like most families, we’ve gotten attached to certain traditions, certain recipes that are must haves.. but with double the holidays I get to experiment with at least a few new recipes every year.
Usually I try at least one new side dish, and one new stuffing/dressing. I have to admit, that the dressing is quite possibly my favourite part of the meal, and we generally make 3 different kinds. One is my Fathers recipe that he makes and brings, one is a traditional Sage Dressing that gets stuffed into the Turkey and then one more.. that is either stuffed or baked, depending on how big my Turkey is.
This year I’m going to combine my love of dressing, with my love of my new Instant Pot…. I’ll prep everything ahead of time, and do the rest of the cooking for this dressing on the day of, while the Turkey is roasting. I also plan to make my mashed potatoes in the IP… it takes so much less time to cook the 10 lbs of potatoes we generally use, and I love how smooth and creamy they come out when cooked in the Instant Pot.
Because I’m doing the Instant Pot dressing, I’ll also have more room in my ovens, so I may just be able to squeak one more side dish in.
Instant Pot Southern Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 C broth. turkey or chicken
- 1 C unsalted butter
- 1 C chopped celery
- 1/2 C crispy bacon chopped
- 1/2 C dried cranberries
- 1/4 C pecans chopped
- 1 medium white onion chopped
- 1 loaf bread cubed and toasted
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sage
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 1/4 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray a cookie sheet with baking spray.
- Bake the cubed bread in the 350 degrees oven for 20 minutes. Allow the bread to cool completely before making the stuffing.
- Combine butter, broth, celery, and onion in a pot simmering until tender. Add salt, sage, garlic, and pepper. Stir in the butter mixture. Put bread into a large bowl. Stir in the bacon, cranberries, and pecans in with the bread. Pour your butter/ spice mixture over the bread. Mix well.
- Stuff into a corning ware baking dish. Cover with foil, poking a hole in the middle of the tin foil.
- (Make a foil sling by taking an 18inch strip of foil, fold it lengthwise twice, for lifting the dish out of the pressure cooker.)
- Pour 1 1/2 cups of water into the instant pot. Put the trivet in the bottom of the instant pot. Center the baking dish on the foil strip and lower it into the instant pot. Fold the foil strips down so that they do not interfere with closing the lid.
- Lock the lid in place. Put it on High Pressure, setting the timer for 15 minutes. When beep sounds, turn off the instant pot then do a quick pressure release to release the pressure. When the valve drops carefully remove the lid.
- Use the foil handles to remove the baking dish of stuffing.
- If you prefer the stuffing as is then after removing the baking dish from the instant pot rewrap the foil on top. keeping it on until you are ready to serve it.
- If you would prefer to have the stuffing a little crispy.
- Simply take the stuffing out of the baking dish and transfer it on to a parchment lined baking tray sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Put in preheated 350° oven for 5 – 10 minutes to crisp up the stuffing.
That looks amazing! I love the idea of making it in the instant pot! Yum!
hi ,
Oh wow that looks really delicious!
This recipe looks so yummy, can’t wait to try it. What kind of bread did you use?
What kind of bread was used?