Prep time: 20 min • Cook time: 1 hr 10 min • Yield: 12 to 16 servings

Equipment

• 3-quart oven safe baking dish

Ingredients

• 10 cups Paleo bread cubes (see Notes below)*
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus enough to butter the baking dish
• 2 cups yellow onion, diced (2 large)
• 1 cup celery, diced (3 large stalks)
• 1 cup carrots, diced (3 large carrots)
• 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 3 teaspoons ground dried sage
• ¾ teaspoon dried or 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary leaves, minced
• 1 ½ teaspoons dried or 4 ½ teaspoons fresh marjoram, minced
• 1 ½ teaspoon dried or 4 ½ teaspoons fresh thyme, minced
• 2 teaspoons salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon powdered ginger
• 2 cups chicken stock or Chicken Bone Broth (or more, see Notes below)**

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350º F.
2. Cut the bread into ¾-inch cubes and spread evenly on two baking sheets. Bake for 7 or more minutes until dried and toasted.
3. In a large sauté pan, melt 6 tablespoons butter and add onion, celery, and carrots. Sauté for 10 to 15 minutes until onions are translucent. Add parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, and ginger and mix well.
4. Combine the bread cubes and cooked vegetables in a large bowl and add the chicken stock or bone broth. Gently toss together and put in buttered baking dish. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until heated through and the top begins to brown.

Notes

*You can bake your own bread using your favorite Paleo bread recipe or purchase Paleo bread in a specialty market or online. Julian Bakery offers several varieties. I opted to bake my own for this recipe, and I used two loaves of Elana Amsterdam’s Paleo Bread 2.0 which makes a fabulous stuffing.
**You can adjust the chicken stock or broth based on how moist you like your stuffing.   

Variations

For Apple Sage Stuffing, add one large diced Golden Delicious apple instead of carrots, and cook with the vegetable mixture. Optionally, add 1 cup of dried cranberries.

Apple Sausage Stuffing is another favorite. Follow the directions above for Apple Sage Stuffing and add 1 pound of sautéed pork, chicken, or turkey sausage. If the sausage is already seasoned with herbs, lighten up on the herbs in the recipe.

If you like mushrooms, you can also add 1 to 2 cups of mushrooms to the vegetable mixture. This will add a lot of moisture to the mix so you might use a little less stock.

Gravy

Stuffing is also delicious topped with homemade turkey or chicken gravy. Use arrowroot instead of cornstarch or flour to make perfect gravy. Drain most of the fat from the turkey pan drippings and place in a large skillet on medium heat. Add 1½ cups chicken or turkey stock, or bone broth. Mix 3 tablespoons arrowroot with ½ cup of additional stock or broth and add to skillet. Gently simmer for 5 to 7 minutes stirring until thickened. This will yield 2 cups of gravy. Easy.

More ways to use this recipe:

Now that you have a good stuffing recipe you don’t have to save it for Thanksgiving. In these recipes you want the stuffing to be fairly moist so add additional stock or broth. Rather than baking it, use it to stuff button mushrooms for hors d’oeuvres, Portobello mushrooms for a side dish or entrée, or chicken breasts. You can stuff it under the skin (on a skin-on breast) and bake it.

To make a roulade, flatten a boneless, skinless breast thin enough that you can roll it. Place it flat on your workspace, top it with stuffing (leaving ¾ - 1-inch around the edges), roll tightly and bake. After roasting, let the roulades rest for about 10 to 15 minutes, and then slice into rounds. Chicken roulade is great on a buffet.