Skillet Sausage Stuffing

New Year's Eve, and the Hoppin' John simmers while the year turns. 2022 is ending. The year the cookbook found a publisher. The year Carrie went to Japan. The year Mama's words became fragments and the fragments became silence and the silence became the new language of a woman who is still here, still in the kitchen, still wearing the pearl earrings that Ruth puts on her every morning because the pearls are the dignity and the dignity is non-negotiable.

Robert and I toasted at midnight. Champagne. The piazza. The fireworks. The tradition that has survived twenty-six years of marriage and that will survive the next twenty-six, because the tradition is not the champagne. The tradition is the two people drinking it. And the two people are still here. Still together. Still showing up.

I thought about the year ahead: the cookbook revisions, the publication in fall, the possibility that Mama's recipes will be in bookstores, on shelves, in the hands of people who never met Carolyn Simmons but who will, through the reading, understand what she cooked and why she cooked it and the love that was in every dish and the family that ate every meal and the daughter who wrote it all down because writing it down was the only way to keep it alive.

Mama was asleep at midnight. The sleeping was the peace. The peace was the year ending. And the year ending was the year beginning. And the beginning was the Hoppin' John on the stove and the woman at the stove and the peas that promise continuity and the continuity that the woman delivers, every week, every meal, every Sunday she-crab soup, until the delivering is done and the done is the life.

The Hoppin’ John is the centerpiece — it always is — but a New Year’s table needs something alongside it that is equally unapologetic about being filling, warm, and present. This Skillet Sausage Stuffing is what I reach for in those last quiet hours of December, when the champagne is still chilling and Mama is already asleep and the whole weight of the year that was and the year that will be sits right there in the kitchen with you. Bread and sausage and sage: nothing fancy, nothing fragile, just the kind of dish that shows up the same way the people you love show up — reliably, warmly, without needing to be asked twice.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb pork sausage (mild or sage-seasoned)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried sage
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
6 cups day-old bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes (about 1/2 loaf)
1 1/2 cups chicken broth, warmed
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Instructions

Brown the sausage. Heat a 12-inch oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it into crumbles, until browned and cooked through, about 7–8 minutes. Transfer to a plate and leave 1 tablespoon of drippings in the pan.
Soften the vegetables. Reduce heat to medium. Add the butter to the skillet. Once melted, add the onion and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Preheat the oven. Heat your oven to 375°F while you assemble the stuffing.
Combine. Return the sausage to the skillet. Add the bread cubes and toss gently to distribute evenly with the sausage and vegetables.
Add the liquid. Whisk together the warm chicken broth and beaten eggs, then pour evenly over the bread mixture. Press down lightly with a spatula so the bread absorbs the liquid. Let sit 5 minutes.
Bake. Transfer the skillet to the oven and bake uncovered for 20–25 minutes, until the top is golden and the center is set.
Finish and serve. Remove from the oven and scatter fresh parsley over the top. Serve directly from the skillet while warm.

Nutrition (per serving)

Skillet Sausage Stuffing — The Dish That Holds the Year Together