World’s Best Thanksgiving Stuffing

The Trick to a Terrific Turkey Day

The World’s Best Stuffing has the perfect texture and a delicious savory flavor profile. Make this recipe with breakfast sausage, onions, celery, and mushrooms.

You can omit the mushrooms if you choose.

You can make this recipe the day before and bake or re-heat it’s when ready to serve. I have even made it two days in advance!

There’s a full, printable recipe card for the stuffing below, but first I’ve got some insights that will help you master this super stuffing.

Thanksgiving Is For Stuffing

I live in Chicago but had just come home from a long stay at my Mom’s home in Michigan, where it was in the low 40s and high 30s some nights, when I became inspired. I was in a fall frame of mind when I was there so I made this stuffing.

If you have followed me for some time you may or may not know that I worked as a brand ambassador for a local Chicago company called Chateau Foods. They have since gone out of business, but this recipe originally used those dumplings, though the current version made with French bread is just as amazing!

What Are Chateau Bread Dumplings?

Czech bread dumplings are slices of bread that are thicker, more absorbent, and slightly spongier than regular bread. They serve as a base for pork roasts, beef roasts, or stews. They absorb the meat juices and gravies for you to eat without getting soggy.

Chateau Foods made these dumplings and sold them frozen, but I’ve created my own shortcut version as a replacement now that Chateau has closed their doors.

You Can EASILY Make Your Own Bread Dumplings

If you are missing the Chateau Dumplings, or want a sense of what they were like, you can make bread dumplings at home by using Rhodes Frozen White Bread Dough.

I will add a full, printable recipe card at the end of this post to show how easy it is to make your own bread dumplings. For this recipe, the French bread method will be perfect, as you can see in the stuffing recipe card.

Another Delicious Dumpling Recipe

You can see an example of a traditional recipe using these bread dumplings in my Pork Tenderloin with Mustard Cream Sauce post.

It was my job to think up new ways to use the dumplings when I worked for Chateau and one day I was thinking about stuffing and I had a light bulb moment. What if I use the bread dumplings to make stuffing?

I already knew they make great French toast, so why not stuffing?

I went ahead and tried it with my traditional stuffing recipe, replacing the white bread with the bread dumplings and thus was the World’s Best Thanksgiving Stuffing was born!

While Chateau Dumplings may be gone, the stuffing they inspired lives on, better than ever!

Dumpling Substitutes

Since you can no longer find the Chateau Dumplings, I substituted 6 to 8 cups of French bread cubes in the recipe below.

I find the Turano Bread French Rolls work for this recipe as well. You can click the link to see what those look like.

Any French rolls will also do. You need a chewy roll that doesn’t have a super dense crust on it. I also make a stuffing with the Turano rolls called Butter Stuffing which is delicious as well.

Tipsy Tip: I do not include measurements for the spices.

Everyone has different taste buds and therefore I do not like to give measurements. Personally I prefer a lot of black pepper in my stuffing while some may not like.

I encourage you to start with a couple teaspoons of each spice and adjust after tasting the stuffing. Original Tipsy (my Mom) likes to add celery seed or celery salt to her stuffing and that is also delicious. You can also add sage if you like. This is just how I personally make this stuffing but you should add what you like and the amount you like.

Anytime Stuffing

This stuffing is perfect for the holidays, but it also makes a great Sunday dinner to accompany a roast chicken, pork roast, or any protein really. It can even be a complete meal because it has the veggies and sausage in the stuffing.

I have served this stuffing with some pan fried pork chops and even stuffed chicken breasts with it. You will see the stuffing is super moist, not soggy, and has a unique light and airy texture.

As I mentioned before, you can make this particular recipe if you choose, but you can also use your own recipe for stuffing and swap out your usual bread base for the dumplings.

Once you give the dumplings a try they are going to be your new holiday specialty ingredient just like how french fried onions and Campbell’s soup is to the green bean casserole and how the Jiffy Corn muffin mix is to the corn casserole.

I served this stuffing at a grocery store opening as a demo and many of the customers were asking if they could buy the stuffing already made.

It’s that good!

I hope you give this recipe a try and love it as much as we do. As always, thank you for reading and happy eating!

And if you want to make your own bread dumplings, here’s an easy recipe to try.