This year skip your typical stuffing recipe. Instead, try this Southern holiday side dish instead! Check out this Easy Oyster Dressing recipe!
This Easy Oyster Dressing recipehas been sponsored by Sister Schubert’s.
Dressing recipe for Thanksgiving! It’s a Southern side dish favorite!
Until I was a teenager we moved around a lot with the Air Force and Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t very eventful. Neither of my parents really cooked.
So the idea of making a huge turkey dinner for just three people seemed like more trouble and work than it was worth. Most of my memories as a child on Thanksgiving involved some sort of restaurant.
Thanksgiving dinner forever changed at 13 when my grandparents came to live with us. They were both used to a full spread of holiday dishes and my grandma had no problems getting up before the sun to get the turkey prepped and in the oven. As I said, my mom wasn’t much of a cook so my grandma took it upon herself to teach me how and I quickly became her Thanksgiving sous chef.
My grandma was a firm believer in working smarter, not harder. Especially on Thanksgiving.
She wasn’t about to waste precious time making homemade rolls when she could get the same taste, faster and easier by popping Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls in the oven 5-10 minutes before dinner was ready. She would time things just right so that as people started sitting down at the table, the warm basket of Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls would appear.
Oyster Dressing Recipe
Influenced by the other grandma and my Florida roots, I combined our family tradition of Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls with a Southern Thanksgiving staple in this easy oyster dressing recipe.
My uncle’s a fisherman, so when the entire family gets together for the holidays, seafood is usually found. I would assume there was probably some seafood at the first Thanksgiving as well!
How do you make oyster dressing?
My oyster dressing recipe is almost completely homemade. I took a few shortcuts by using a cornbread stuffing mix and the frozen dinner rolls. But everything else is pretty fresh.
You can read the complete recipe on the printable recipe card below.
To make oyster dressing, you need a can of oysters and some oyster juice. You’ll brown the onion, celery, and garlic in some butter first. Then you’ll boil chicken broth with the oyster juice. This is what gives it so much flavor!
After that starts to boil, remove it from the heat and add this cajun seasoning (for a really amazing kick!), stuffing mix and the oysters and place everything over some cubed cooked dinner rolls. Mix this up just a bit with a fork – but don’t over mix it.
What you have is a powerful Thanksgiving side dish everyone will love.
What is the difference between stuffing and dressing?
Literally, stuffing is the bread mixture that you stuff inside the turkey. When you make it as a stand-alone side dish, it’s dressing. If you like dressing, you might like this rice dressing recipe.
Serve your oysters with classic southern side dishes such as grilled corn, red potatoes, coleslaw, or cornbread, and you'll have a delicious meal that your guests are sure to remember.
"Stuffing is cooked in the cavity of the turkey, so the juices soak into the ingredients, making it more flavorful.Dressing gets cooked on its own and needs extra liquid to make it flavorful." So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish.
While oysters aren't commonly associated with a Thanksgiving feast, they actually played a larger role in the origination of the holiday than you'd think. The mollusks were likely feature prominently on the tables of early American settlers, unlike a turkey.
The history of Oyster Dressing dates back over 300 years ago. This savory side dish was brought to America by the British colonists. At the time, oysters were quite plentiful and could be easily gathered along the shoreline. This Thanksgiving side is still quite popular.
First created at Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans in 1899, this famous baked oyster dish was named for the Rockefeller family because of its incredibly rich sauce. Try making it at home with star chef Emeril Lagasse's expert recipe.
But for the Thanksgiving side dish in the South, the term dressing was adopted in place of stuffing, which was viewed as a crude term, during the Victorian era. Although dressing and stuffing are interchangeable terms, the signature ingredient of this Thanksgiving side dish in the South is cornbread.
The most popular Thanksgiving side in the U.S. is mashed potatoes, which reigns supreme in 9 states. The second most popular side is rolls, being favored by Utah, Florida, North Carolina, and West Virginia. 74% of Americans expect to be eating at least 4 side dishes on Thanksgiving.
But many people insist on one term or the other regardless of how it's prepared or what's in it. The term dressing is most commonly used in the South, but it's popular in pockets throughout the US.
In the northern hemisphere, the old rule that native oysters should only be eaten when there's an 'r' in the month still holds true; so eat oysters from September to April. During the summer months they're busy spawning, and their flesh becomes unpleasantly soft and milky. Rock oysters are available all year round.
The original advice is that you should: Only eat oysters in the eight months of the year that contain the letter “R” in the name, which means September through April. The other four months of the year — May through August — are off limits.
You may have heard the saying that you should only eat oysters in months that contain the letter "r," meaning oysters harvested in the warmer summer months of May through August were not safe for consumption. However, oysters are now sold and consumed year-round with little to no worries.
Most people stuff the turkey with dressing so that it can absorb the flavorful juices of the turkey as it cooks, and while we agree that the turkey can lend a lot of flavor to the dressing, it can also make it mushy. The dressing essentially steams inside the bird and can become oversaturated in juices.
In England, a stuffing is sometimes made of minced pork shoulder seasoned with various ingredients, such as sage, onion, bread, chestnuts, dried apricots, and dried cranberries. The stuffing mixture may be cooked separately and served as a side dish. This may still be called stuffing or it may be called dressing.
The British brought the tradition of oyster stuffing to the colonies. In 1685, a British cookbook mentioned stuffing poultry or fish with oysters. Since oysters were plentiful (and extremely cheap) in the New World, they were used by the poor or laborers to stretch their meager meat rations.
Enjoying some seafood with co*cktail sauce is acceptable and even encouraged, but oysters have a flavor that stands on its own. Stick to just a drop of lemon juice and let the flavors of the oyster speak for themselves.
Oysters often are served with a condiment of minced shallots, cracked pepper and vinegar. Many say it masks the flavor and, instead, recommend a squeeze of fresh lemon.
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