Cornbread & Squash Dressing

Every Southern cook must have a good cornbread dressing recipe in their wheel house.  It’s a must.  An absolute.  Non-negotiable if you plan to reach the pinnacle of what Southern cooking is all about.  And like most recipes for this all important holiday dish, the one my family loves the most has been passed down over time.  I learned to make it, like most home cooks, in the kitchen with my mother and mamaw.  It was a highly anticipated cooking event, a recipe prepared with both fanfare and reverance.  And there was something almost sacred about the way they would roll up their sleeves and use their hands to gently mix, coax and finally transform that cornbread into the holiday side dish we’d been waiting for all year.  

Side dish?  Who am I kidding?  Dressing is no side dish.  It’s culinary feat.  A well-guarded secret.  And only the best cooks in the family get to make it.  In the South, cornbread dressing is the whole darn holiday show.  And there is just something about a good pan of Cornbread & Squash Dressing that surpasses all other versions and varieties.  While the mild flavor of yellow squash won’t overwhelm you, the moistness it brings to the cornbread will certainly cause you to sit up and take notice.  Then there’s there’s the whole host of support vegetables, like green bell pepper, onion and celery that add layers of savory  flavor.

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What You Need to Make Cornbread & Squash Dressing

• yellow cornbread mix
• buttermilk
• green bell pepper
• squash
• onion
• celery
• butter
• eggs
• cream of chicken soup
• chicken broth
• poultry seasoning

This dressing starts off like any good cornbread should-  in a sizzling hot cast iron skillet.  I put a little oil in my skillet and stick it in the oven as it preheats.  You know you’ve got it right when you hear that sizzle and pop as soon as your batter hits the pan.  This is what puts that great crisp on your cornbread so that it will cook up nice and fluffy like it should!

I also go ahead and just cook all those vegetables right in the cornbread instead of sauteeing or cooking them down first.  This has a couple of benefits.  1)  It saves time.  2)  All that moisture and flavor packed in those veggies goes right into your cornbread instead of being wasted in a boiler of water or sautee pan.

After the cornbread cools enough to work with, we have to break it back down.  That’s right!  Your beautiful cornbread.  Pull it from the pan.  Break it into pieces and start adding all those things that make is so yummy, like butter and eggs and broth.  This is where cooking dressing gets a little bit physical, but it’s also where all the magic happens! So roll up your sleeves, add all those secret ingredients and get to squishing and mixing with your hands.  You have to work those flavors into that cornbread, and no fork or wooden spoon does it quite the same as those two things God put on the ends of your arms.  

When everything is mixed, it’s time to put that cornbread into a casserole dish and put it back into the oven.  What goes in as cornbread, comes back out as Cornbread Dressing!

You’ll know it’s done when it’s golden brown and set in the middle.  And you’ll know you’ve hit the dressing jackpot when this Cornbread & Squash Dressing is gone just minutes after you place it on your holiday table!

Note~ We can’t always wait until the holidays to enjoy this recipe.  We often enjoy it in the summer too, as soon as all that fresh squash from the garden and at the farmers’ markets starts coming in!

 

Pretty & Useful Things for Making & Serving Cornbread & Squash Dressing

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