Slow Cooker Sausage Stuffing — This sausage stuffing is super easy to make since the slow cooker does all the hard work for you! There’s no sauteing or browning required at all and you can FREE UP YOUR OVEN!!
Table of Contents
- The BEST Sausage Stuffing Recipe
- Slow Cooker Sausage Stuffing Ingredients
- How to Make Slow Cooker Stuffing with Sausage
- Can I Prep This Stuffing in Advance?
- Can I Make This with Cornbread?
- Can I Replace the Bread with Store-Bought Stuffing Cubes?
- Tips for Making the Best Stuffing Recipe with Sausage
- Slow Cooker Sausage Stuffing Recipe
- More Easy Thanksgiving Sides:
The BEST Sausage Stuffing Recipe
My family loves stuffing. It’s definitely their favorite Thanksgiving side dish, hands down. I wanted to try a new stuffing recipe this year and they told me this one is a keeper.
This slow cooker stuffing is buttery soft with a bit of texture from onions and celery. It’s packed with flavor from fresh rosemary, sage, thyme, and parsley. Juicy sausage adds wonderful richness. I used hot Italian sausage and it lends great depth of flavor without being spicy, but use mild sausage if you prefer.
You don’t even need to brown the sausage first, meaning that’s another step avoided and another skillet you won’t dirty. It all counts and it all adds up, especially on holidays.
I love how easy the stuffing is. It’s made in the slow cooker which is awesome for Thanksgiving or other holidays because it’s one less thing that ties up your oven.
Slow Cooker Sausage Stuffing Ingredients
To make this Crock Pot stuffing recipe, you’ll need:
- French bread
- Unsalted butter
- Yellow onion
- Celery
- Fresh rosemary, sage, thyme, and parsley
- Salt and pepper
- Chicken broth
- Italian sausage
Bread Tip
Make sure you start with day-old or stale French bread. I bought a one pound loaf from the grocery store bakery, diced it into cubes, placed the cubes into my slow cooker, and let it sit out for about 12 hours (overnight) before beginning the rest of the recipe.
How to Make Slow Cooker Stuffing with Sausage
This truly is the BEST stuffing recipe with sausage. It’s super easy to prepare, and since it’s made in a slow cooker the recipe is basically foolproof.
Here’s an overview of how the Crockpot stuffing with sausage is made:
- Dice the French bread and place it inside the slow cooker insert. Let it sit overnight to dry out.
- The next day, add the butter, onion, celery, rosemary, sage, thyme, salt, pepper, chicken broth and stir to combine.
- Crumble the Italian sausage over the bread mixture (no need to brown it first).
- Cover and cook the slow cooker stuffing on low for roughly 4 to 5 hours, or until the vegetables are tender and the sausage is cooked through.
- Stir the sausage into the bread mixture, then give the sausage stuffing a taste and add more salt, pepper, or desired herbs as you deem necessary.
- Sprinkle the parsley onto the sausage dressing and stir to combine. Let the slow cooker stuffing cook for another 5 minutes before serving.
Can I Prep This Stuffing in Advance?
I’ve only ever made this sausage stuffing as written, so I can’t say for certain if you can cook it ahead of time and reheat it on Thanksgiving. My gut says that would be fine, but I’ve only made if day-of on past Thanksgivings.
Can I Make This with Cornbread?
I’ve only ever made this recipe with French bread, but cornbread should work.
You may want to toast the cornbread before adding it to the slow cooker or let it dry out for an extra day or two though. Cornbread is more prone to disintegrating, so it needs to be really dry before being made into sausage stuffing.
Can I Replace the Bread with Store-Bought Stuffing Cubes?
Possibly, yes, that could work although I haven’t tried it myself. If the store-bought stuffing or bread cubes are big chunks, go ahead and try them out.
However, if they’re fine like breadcrumbs, that definitely will not work.
Tips for Making the Best Stuffing Recipe with Sausage
If you want to add other veggies or a chopped apple to this slow cooker stuffing, be sure to scale back the amount of vegetables that’s called for in the recipe below. Adding additional vegetables to this sausage stuffing may make the mixture too moist and the texture won’t turn out right.
For that same reason you don’t want to add any eggs to this sausage stuffing recipe. Trust me, your stuffing will turn out perfectly if you follow the recipe exactly as written!
Finally, note that the sausage and veggies go into the slow cooker raw. There’s no need to sauté them ahead of time — the slow cooker does all the hard work for you.
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Slow Cooker Sausage Stuffing
Ingredients
- one pound loaf French bread, diced into 1-inch cubes and allowed to dry out for about 12 hours
- ½ cup unsalted butter, diced into 1/4-inch pieces
- 1 extra-large sweet Vidalia or yellow onion, diced small (about 2 cups)
- 1 cup celery, diced small
- 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary, sticks discarded, finely minced
- 3 tablespoons fresh sage, stems discarded, finely minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, sticks discarded, finely minced
- 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
- ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, or to taste
- 1 ½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 1 pound ground Italian sausage, I used hot but you can use mild; sausasge should be raw and the not precooked type
- ¼ cup fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley, or to taste
Instructions
- Place bread inside a 6-quart slow cooker that’s been lined with a slow cooker liner or sprayed with cooking spray. Allow bread to dry out and become stale for about 12 hours (overnight).
- The next day, add the butter, onion, celery, rosemary, sage, thyme, salt, pepper, chicken broth and stir to combine.
- Evenly crumble the raw sausage in small, bite-sized pieces over the bread mixture.
- Cover and cook on low for about 4 to 5 hours, or until vegetables are tender and sausage is cooked through. All slow cookers vary in their intensity so cook until done.
- Stir the sausage into the bread mixture, taste, and check for seasoning balance. Add more salt, pepper, or additional herbs if desired, to taste.
- Add the parsley and stir to incorporate. Cover and cook for 5 minutes before serving (Adding the parsley at the end allows it to stay green, vibrant, and lends nice visual appeal).
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Easy Thanksgiving Sides:
You can find all of my Thanksgiving recipes HERE.
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Originally published November 2016 and republished November 2019 with updated text.
This recipe is a family favorite, and we make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was recently put on a gluten free diet. Do you think this recipe will work with gluten free bread?
This recipe is a family favorite, and we make it every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was recently put on a gluten free diet. Do you think this recipe will work with gluten free bread?
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad you love this recipe!
As for the GF bread, it’s hard to say. It would depend on the texture. Some GF bread can be a bit soft and delicate and that would turn into mush I fear. You may want to make it to experiment before the actual holiday arrives so there are no surprises on the big holidays.
When you say to crumble the sausage, do you mean raw, or pre cooked? Thank you in advance!
Raw
Made this for Christmas dinner yesterday and my husband said it was the best stuffing he has ever had! Everyone loved it. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad he said it was the best stuffing he’s ever had!
What a great recipe! I frequently use hot turkey sausage as a substitute for ground meat, and that one ingredient gave this dish a definite edge.The night before, I prepped everything except crumbling the sausage, and getting that head start on this large meal prep was just a bonus.
Thanks for the five star review and I’m glad that you were able to prep things ahead of time, too!
I drive day before to relative’s house for Thanksgiving.
Can I follow recipe exactly as shown but cook ingredients in slow cooker day before Thanksgiving? Refrigerate overnight in slow cooker bowl & Just re-heat on low or high day of Thanksgiving? If yes, for how long? Would this totally change texture & taste? My sister loves that we won’t need oven space for it! THANKS SO MUCH! Mindy
I have only made and prepared the recipe as written so cannot comment on your various questions since I have not done that.
If I am a little strapped for time, can I do it on igh for 2 hours?
Probably but I haven’t done it that way so can’t say for sure.
The recipe says line the bottom of CP and lay bread down to dry out over night.. on top of the spray….So then when you are ready do you just dump everything ON TOP of the bread and leave it? you only say to stir it together at the end…
Step 2 says stir to combine. Yes you can put the bread in the CP to dry out, or on a baking sheet on your counter, whatever you like.
Sheila forwarded your recipe for me to try as she said the preparation was easy and the results were delicious. I have to agree that this is the tastiest sausage stuffing recipe I have ever made. Recipe was easy to follow with a couple of substitutions such as hot Italian sausages for garlic sausages and I added in apples as well. I didn’t have fresh thyme, rosemary and sage so I used dried variety. Still turned out great. I think that the juices from the sausages really added the extra flavours to this stuffing. Thanks for sharing your recipe
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! The apples sound like a lovely idea!
I just made this sausage stuffing recipe in my crock pot and it was absolutely delicious and best of all … it was hassle free … no pre-cooking of any ingredients at all …
This recipe was a definite hit with my family and they went back for seconds …
I’ll be making this again!!! Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it was hassle-free and EASY! Not having to pre-cook anything is such a timesaver!
Is there any way that I can do this same recipe in a smaller crock pot? I noticed that you used a 6-quart crock pot and I only have a 4-quart crock pot?
It will probably work but you’ll have to cook it longer since it’ll be very full. However, I have only tried the recipe as written so if this is for Thanksgiving, I would give it a trial run first.
Alright! thanks I’ll give it a trial run first before I make it for thanksgiving!
Do you think I can use the bagged stuffing like from Peppridge Farm?
I really can’t say because I haven’t tried it that way but that stuffing is pretty much already cooked and I think adding it to a slow cooker would just turn it into mush if you cooked it very long. This recipe is for starting with your own bread and going from there.
The bagged stuffing is not already cooked — i’ve been using it for years. It is actually drier than fresh bread left to dry for a day. I think it would work just fine. I am planning on doing this one this year as we are going to my sis-in-law’s and she only has a single oven. i’m going to use my casserole slow cooker. I also add dried apples to my stuffing and usually use sage breakfast sausage.
I have never used bagged stuffing so I really don’t know if it would work well here or not. I have only made the recipe as written. Hopefully all goes well with your stuffing!
Did it work with Pepperidge Farm?
This stuffing recipes sounds amazing. I am not a very “experienced” cook, and I am new to cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. If I double this recipe for a very large family, would I double the cooking time?
Hmmm… hard question. Do you have a huge crockpot? If not, you will need to increase the cooking time since there will be more food in it and it will take longer for all the food to cook through. However, I don’t think you will double the cooking time, just increase it. Hard to say though because all CPs cook differently. Good luck!
I made your stuffing recipe for a trial run last week. It’s awesome and taste a lot like my mother’s french stuffing. I would like to make this for Thanksgiving. I have high school football players so everything this year is crockpots and the turkey will be done in a roaster. What are your thoughts for tripling the recipe?I have a large crock pot that cooks rather high. Do you think I would be safe with the same cooking time?
Oh gosh that’s a great question. I have never tripled this recipe and all Crock Pots can cook so differently. If it cooks rather high, that’s good. If possible, I would maybe put a double batch in that CP and then a single batch in your smaller CP (it sounds like you have 2 CP’s.) If not…well…you can always triple it in the one, and hope for the best. I would give yourself some cushion time because I suspect it will take somewhat longer, not sure though. LMK how this goes!
Averie, I have made the slow cooker dressing three times since Thanksgiving and each time I get great reviews. Thank you for this recipe and many others, from a guy who enjoys cooking.
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it’s a 3 time hit and that you get rave reviews on it!
can I use sweet italian sausage?
yes