Cornbread Dressing Skillet
Cornbread mix, sausage, apple, and onion cooked down in one pan at camp.
- calories
- 610
- weight
- 7 oz
- cal / oz
- 87
- protein
- 19 g
- serves
- 4, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 35 min
- total time
- 50 min
- water
- 600 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Campfire coals
- Dutch oven
- Canister stove
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Basic
Ingredients
| Cornbread | 6 cups, cubed | bake a pan at home a day early and let it dry out |
|---|---|---|
| Smoked sausage | 8 oz | shelf-stable summer sausage or kielbasa, diced |
| Butter | 4 tbsp | keeps a few days out of the cooler in cool weather |
| Granny Smith apple | 1 large, diced | tart holds its shape, sweet apples turn to mush |
| Onion | 1 medium, diced | |
| Celery | 2 stalks, diced | |
| Garlic | 4 cloves, minced | or 1 tsp granulated |
| Dried thyme | 1 tsp | |
| Rubbed sage | 1 tsp | |
| Dried cranberries | 1/2 cup | |
| Bouillon | 2 cubes | chicken or vegetable |
| Salt and black pepper | 1/2 tsp each |
Method
- Set the pan over the fire or a low burner and melt the butter. Add sausage and cook until the edges brown, about 5 minutes.
- Add onion, celery, and apple. Cook until the onion goes translucent, 8 to 10 minutes, stirring so nothing catches.
- Stir in garlic, thyme, sage, salt, and pepper. Thirty seconds, no longer, or the garlic burns.
- Crumble the bouillon into 600 ml of water and bring it to a boil in the same pan.
- Kill the heat. Fold in the cornbread cubes and cranberries. Press it flat and cover.
- Let it sit over very low heat or coals for 15 minutes so the bread drinks the broth and the bottom crusts. Scrape the crust up when you serve.
Baked dressing needs an oven and an hour. This does the same job on a fire because the cornbread is already dry going in. Stale, cubed cornbread will absorb hot broth in about fifteen minutes without an oven doing anything, so the pan only has to soften vegetables and hold heat.
The heavy cream from an oven version is gone; butter and rendered sausage fat carry the richness instead, and neither needs a fridge for a weekend. Tart apple matters more than it sounds. It is the only sharp thing in a pan of bread, fat, and salt, and without it the whole thing reads as one flat note.
Packing
Cube the cornbread at home and let it air-dry a day, then bag it. Chop the onion, celery, and apple at home and bag them together; they will hold two days in a cooler. Spices and bouillon go in one small container.
Variations
- Chopped pecans, half a cup, stirred in with the cranberries.
- Skip the sausage and use vegetable bouillon for a meatless pan. Add mushrooms with the onion.
- Crack four eggs over the top the next morning and cover until set.
https://www.lodgecastiron.com/blogs/recipe/stuffed-cornbread-dressing