Slow Cooker Stuffing — 🍁🙌🏻🧡 Thanksgiving stuffing just got even EASIER to prepare! SIMPLE ingredients including day old bread, celery, onion and fresh herbs are transformed into MOIST and FLAVORFUL stuffing that’s PERFECT for holiday entertaining from Thanksgiving to Christmas celebrations! Free up oven space this holiday season by making stuffing in your Crock-Pot!
Table of Contents
- Easy Traditional Slow Cooker Stuffing Recipe
- Love Sausage in Your Stuffing?
- Ingredients for Crock Pot Stuffing
- How to Make Stuffing in a Crockpot
- What to Serve with Crockpot Thanksgiving Stuffing
- Storage Instructions
- What To Make with Leftover Stuffing
- Recipe FAQs
- Slow Cooker Stuffing Recipe
- More Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipes:
Easy Traditional Slow Cooker Stuffing Recipe
My Traditional Thanksgiving Stuffing is one of the most popular recipes on my site. It has more than 1,000 glowing reviews and counting! Each year I’m flooded with comments and happy emails from readers telling me how much they love that stuffing!
This Crockpot stuffing recipe is just as flavorful as the classic baked stuffing, but it utilizes a slow cooker to free up precious oven space on the busiest cooking days of the year for Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.
You can begin slow cooking the stuffing a few hours before guests arrive so that you can enjoy more time with loved ones while this easy Thanksgiving side dish cooks itself in your Crock-Pot!
And if you’re trying to prepare as much as possible before Thanksgiving dinner, be sure to make a batch of my Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes while you’re at it.
The base of this Crockpot Thanksgiving stuffing is day old French bread. A simple blend of celery, onion, and fresh herbs infuses the stuffing with layers of flavor that pair perfectly with holiday favorites like roast turkey, citrus turkey, roast turkey breast, apple spiral ham, and honey baked ham.
Love Sausage in Your Stuffing?
If you grew up eating ground sausage in your stuffing, try making my Crockpot Sausage Stuffing instead. It’s another long-time reader favorite that requires zero sauteing or browning!
Ingredients for Crock Pot Stuffing
Slow cooking stuffing doesn’t require any special ingredients. Notice there are no eggs in this Crockpot stuffing recipe — I found that adding eggs actually makes the stuffing mushy!
You’ll need the following basic items:
- Unsalted butter
- Onion – yellow or sweet Vidalia
- Celery
- French bread – use day old bread because it needs to be slightly dry
- Fresh parsley
- Fresh sage
- Fresh rosemary
- Fresh thyme
- Kosher salt
- Ground black pepper
- Chicken broth – I prefer reduced sodium chicken broth; turkey broth also works
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Stuffing in a Crockpot
Cooking stuffing in a Crockpot is a nearly foolproof way to create moist stuffing. It’s impossible to make dry stuffing if you follow these easy steps:
- Dry out the bread: Bake French bread cubes on baking sheet in a single layer at 250ºF for about 45 minutes to really dry them out. This is a must so your stuffing isn’t soggy! Tip: You can do this night before to save time the next day. Leave the dried bread just sitting, uncovered (exposed to air), on the baking sheet.
- Sauté the vegetables and aromatics: Add the butter, diced onions, and diced celery to a large skillet over medium heat. Saute until the vegetables have softened and are lightly browned. Add the fresh herbs and stir.
- Assemble: Place the dry bread cubes, buttery cooked vegetables and herbs into your Crockpot, pour the broth, and stir to combine.
- Slow Cook: Cover and cook on LOW for a total time of 3 to 4 hours. Tip – Cooking on LOW heat helps prevent the stuffing from drying out and ensures even cooking throughout so this is not the time to try high heat slow cooking.
- Fluff and serve: Transfer to a serving bowl, casserole dish, or baking dish, and use a fork to lightly fluff the stuffing before serving.
What to Serve with Crockpot Thanksgiving Stuffing
Recipe FAQs
I always use a loaf of day-old white French bread. My local grocery stores carry it in the bakery section and it’s inexpensive. It’s sold in 1 pound loaves. If you can’t find French bread, use another white bread like sourdough or Italian bread. Do NOT use sliced bread sold in loaves (i.e. normal bread like you’d use for sandwiches or toast is NOT going to work for stuffing) because it’ll turn to mush, no matter how dry you get it.
Yes, you MUST dry out the bread cubes in the oven before adding them to the Crockpot. This ensures the cooked stuffing isn’t mushy. Dry the bread cubes at a low temperature (250°F) to avoid burning the bread cubes or really even toasting them, per se. You’re not looking for them to develop much (if any) color. You simply want them to dry out the bread.
Dry Ahead: You can do this the night before. Just keep the dried cubes on the baking sheet, exposed to air, overnight. This will dry it out even further which is a good thing in this case.
Yes and no. Toasting the bread in advance (see above) is fine.
And you can cook the stuffing up to about 3-4 hours before serving. Slow cook the required 3 to 4 hours on LOW, then turn the Crockpot to “warm” to keep warm until ready to serve. As with most things though, the less it just sits and lingers before you serve it, the better. It will continue to dry out as it is being “kept warm”, nature of the beast, so keep that in mind.
I do not recommend cooking the stuffing, refrigerating it, and then reheating it the next day to serve to guests. The texture won’t be as good if you do that. Plus, this is a special day (I am guessing) when you’re making this – so plan ahead.
You’ll yield about 9 to 10 cups of bread cubes from 1 pound of French bread.
Fresh herbs are really what make this Crockpot stuffing stand out from the crowd, and you’ll likely have many on hand if you’re making other Thanksgiving and holiday recipes. But, if you don’t have any on hand, you can use dried herbs. Use about half to one-third the amount of dried herbs as fresh because dried herbs are more potent in flavor. So 2 tablespoons fresh thyme will be about 3/4 to 1 tablespoon dried. Always season to your personal preferences though!
Yes, you’re welcome to add dried cranberries or chopped nuts (like walnuts or pecans) if desired. I would toss about 1/2 cup into the Crockpot when you’re stirring everything else together, see how it looks, and then add more if desired. Yes, you’re welcome to add dried cranberries or chopped nuts (like pecans) if desired.
That’s correct, no eggs. During recipe testing, I used my Classic Traditional Stuffing recipe as my jumping off place. However, my first batch in the slow cooker came out way too soggy because I added two eggs and the same amount of broth as that baked stuffing recipe has. After making some adjustments (no eggs, less broth) this slow cooker stuffing came out perfectly.
I made this recipe in my 6-quart Crockpot. You can make it in 7-quart Crockpot, but do not use a smaller one because the ingredients will be squished and the stuffing won’t cook properly.
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Slow Cooker Stuffing
Equipment
- 1 6-quart slow cooker OR
Ingredients
- 1 pound day old white French bread, diced into 1/2-inch cubes and dried* (more info in step 1 below)
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 2 – 2 ½ cups sweet Vivaldi or yellow onion, diced small (about 1 large or extra large onion)
- 1 ½ cups celery, diced small
- ⅔ cup flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
- ¼ cup fresh sage leaves, finely minced (or to taste)
- 3 tablespoons fresh rosemary sprigs, stems removed and finely minced (or to taste)
- 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, finely minced (or to taste)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 ½ – 2 ½ cups reduced sodium chicken broth, divided, add as needed
Instructions
- Bread – Preheat oven to 250F, cube the day old French bread into 1/2-inch cubes, place it on a baking sheet (or two baking sheets) and bake, stirring occasionally, until the bread is dried out, about 45 minutes. *Tips – You must begin with very dry bread or it’ll turn to mush. I use French bread that I purchase from my grocery store bakery. Italian bread or sourdough may be substituted. Do NOT use basic regular bread that you'd use for sandwiches or toast because it will disintegrate. Toast-Ahead – To save time on the day of, you can bake and dry out the bread the night before . Leave it uncovered on the counter until the morning or when you’re ready to make the stuffing.
- Sauteeing – To a large skillet, add the butter, onions, celery, and saute over medium to medium-high heat for about 8-10 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft and just beginning to brown. In the final minute or two, add all the fresh herbs, salt, pepper, stir to combine, and saute to allow the flavors to bloom.
- Slow Cooker – To the insert of your slow cooker, add the dried bread, the buttery vegetables and herbs mixture; stir to combine.
- Add 1 1/2 cups broth, stir to combine and coat everything evenly, place the lid on your slow cooker and cook on LOW for about 3-4 hours. Tip – I do not recommend using the high heat setting; low is better to cook the stuffing evenly and without drying it out. Stuffing is done when it's cooked through, lightly moist throughout – not still soggy but not overly dried out either. Slow cookers vary a lot, as does personal preference for stuffing. Keep an eye on yours and cook as needed, however long that takes.Additional Broth – During the slow cooking process, check on the stuffing, and use your judgment if you want to add additional broth or not, up to about 1 cup. If you like drier stuffing, you may not need to add any. If your bread was very dry or you like more moist stuffing, add some broth. It's really going to depend on your preferences as well as your ingredients as well as the heat output of your slow cooker.
- Serving – Transfer stuffing to a serving bowl (or serve it straight from the slow cooker). Fluff it with a fork first before serving. You can garnish it with additional fresh herbs, if desired. You can make it about 3 hours ahead of time and use the keep warm feature to hold it. Any longer than that, it will start becoming dried out.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipes:
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Stovetop Stuffing — With this easy homemade stuffing recipe, you’ll never need a box of the store-bought stuff again! Onions, carrots, and celery are sautéed in butter, seasoned with an aromatic bouquet of herbs, and cubed bread is stirred in to create the most perfect stuffing that’s moist and tender!
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