On the heels of my successful How to Do Thanksgiving for Under $40 at ALDI post, I felt it was time to add an ALDI specific recipe to the blog – and the crowd goes wild!!!!!

Of course you can make this stuffing without shopping at ALDI – but I am challenging you to make it with ALDI ingredients, so there!

This stuffing, which is technically dressing because it’s not going into the turkey – it never does in my house, slows the cooking of the turkey down – is pretty easy to make.

You can make it ahead and just warm it up on Thanksgiving, which would be a great time saver and stress reducer for the big day. Or you can cook all the ingredients ahead and store them in the fridge. Then bake it all on Thanksgiving. Either way you may help keep the gray hairs at bay.

Doesn’t that look like it belongs in your mouth?

ALDI Ingredients

Here are the ingredients I used from ALDI. The estimated cost of the stuffing is $6.26. This is how I did it.

I used Italian bread from ALDI to make my stuffing. Cut it into cubes the day before and let it dry out.

Italian Bread

In my post, How to Do Thanksgiving for Under $40 at ALDI, I was aiming to make a good meal without going over the $40 mark. For a good meal that means not using boxed stuffing mixed, which would surely be cheaper. Instead I opted to buy a loaf of Italian bread.

The bread is cut into cubes the day before and allowed to dry out. The drier the bread, the most it can soak up. It’s like making French Toast, which was invented to use up old, stale bread.

You don’t want to buy any sandwich bread. Preservatives in it will keep it from drying out and you can’t cut into nice cubs like the Italian. If your ALDI has a sourdough option that would be great as well, maybe even better.

Ground Italian Sausage

I guess this is an Italian stuffing – would be even more if you found some chestnuts to add. You can get a pound of ground Italian sausage for $1.99. There are other sausage options as well that cost a $1 more. You can buy whole sausage and just break it up when you cook it.

Sausage and celery ready to be added to the bread.

Celery & What’s in Your Fridge

You gotta have some veggies! Celery is super cheap and will hold up in the oven without becoming pure mush.

I also would recommend looking at what is in your fridge or pantry. Stuffing is a great way to toss in some leftover ingredients that might otherwise end up in the trash. Any kind of root vegetable like carrots would work. Onion, garlic, or shallots are always appreciated. You could even shred up some Brussels sprouts and mix them half way through baking.

Sage

If there is an herb you should be using on Thanksgiving, it’s sage. It plays so well with the food we associate with the holiday. Stuffing is no different. I do like fresh sage and would be using some from my garden this Thanksgiving, except for I had to move and leave it all behind 🙁

ALDI has some dried sage you can get that also would be great in a turkey brine/rub or in your gravy.

You are getting some herbal flavor from the Italian sausage, so you could skip the sage if you really wanted.

Turkey Stock

Why use chicken stock when ALDI has turkey stock this time of year. It’s a seasonal thing, I think the flavor of turkey stock is better as I do the flavor of turkey over chicken.

A 32oz carton of turkey stock is enough for 2 cups of gravy, and 2 cups for this sausage stuffing.

The stuffing ready to be baked.

Putting It Altogether

This part is super easy.

Cook the sausage, remove from pan
Cook the veggies
Add it all to a baking dish
Pour on the stock
Bake

Stuffing doesn’t need to be fussy or complicated to be good. That’s part the point, right? And it will be better than anything a box can give you.