One of the most delicious versions of classic Thanksgiving stuffing made in a slow cooker! Just 10 delicious ingredients cooked for a few hours while you make the rest of your Thanksgiving dinner. This is a great dish to prep in advance and take to a friendsgiving, too! I love it with homemade Honeybaked ham and baked cheesy rice. YUM.
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We've definitely talked about this before, but where do we fall on turkey vs sides at Thanksgiving? I am Team Side Dishes all the way (my personal favorite side dish is vidalia onion casserole!) - I like roasted or smoked turkey breast OK, but honestly side dishes are my favorite thing about Thanksgiving, hands down.
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This stuffing version is made in a slow cooker and includes apples and sausage for quintessential fall + Thanksgiving flavors.
I use a similar butter/stock/egg mixture that I use in my baked sausage stuffing, but with a little less liquid since things tend to stay pretty damp in the slow cooker. The ingredients are simple and can be swapped out easily, and overall this is just one of those really great stuffing recipes that you can make again and again.
I've made this a few different ways over the years, sometimes skipping the sausage for a vegetarian version, sometimes not sautéing the celery and onion, and honestly so many versions of this stuffing are absolutely delicious.
Timing Tip: The only thing to take note of is the time: you'll want pretty stale/dry bread (I leave it out on baking sheets a few days before Thanksgiving), and the stuffing takes about 4 hours in the slow cooker to finish. That's it!
Ingredients and Ingredient Notes
- Bread for stuffing can be ANYTHING you need to get rid of. Leftover sandwich bread, a French loaf from the grocery store, random bits in the freezer, etc. I often make two loaves of no-knead Dutch oven bread the week of Thanksgiving - one for snacking and cheese plates, and one for this stuffing!
- Sausage: You can use any kind of ground bulk sausage you like for this! I like hot Italian sausage (same kind I use in sausage vodka sauce), but breakfast sausage, country sausage, or bulk chicken sausage all work great.
- If you'd like to make this stuffing vegetarian, leave out the sausage and sub vegetable stock. You can add sautéed mushrooms, chopped walnuts, or simply leave it out.
- The apple in this dish gets very soft and adds a little sweetness throughout the stuffing. If you'd like more apple flavor, wait until the last hour of cooking to add the apple, then stir the stuffing, press it down again, and let it cook for 1 more hour. You can also use 2 apples!
**See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
Step By Step Instructions
Prep: Drying the bread for the stuffing. The first thing to note about stuffing is that the bread needs to be dry. I cut my bread into cubes and spread it on baking sheets for 1-3 days (just uncovered on the counter) to get it nice and dry.
If you forget this step, you can bake the bread cubes at 350F for 10 minutes to toast them a bit, no biggie.
Step 1: Heat a skillet to medium heat, and brown the sausage until it's crumbly and cooked through, breaking it up with a wooden spoon as you go.
Step 2: Add the celery, onion, and spices to the skillet. Stir everything together for about 3 minutes to soften the veggies just slightly.
Step 3: Place the bread, apples, and sausage mixture into the slow cooker. Whisk together the melted butter, stock, and eggs and pour that all over the bread mixture.
Step 4: Stir the bread into the liquid, sausage mixture, and apples, and press the stuffing into one even layer. Cook the stuffing for 3-4 hours on LOW until the edges are slightly crispy and the center of the stuffing is set.
Slow Cooker Pro Tip: This isn't a recipe that works well on high; in most slow cookers the high setting will burn the edges of the stuffing before it cooks all the way to the center.
A note on crispy edges: Certain slow cookers don't ever get super hot at the edges, some get really hot. If you find that, after 3-4 hours, the edges of your stuffing aren't crispy, you can turn the heat to HIGH for 30-60 minutes and let the stuffing cook UNCOVERED to let some moisture escape and get some crispy edge action!
And, done! This is easy, delicious, keeps a dish out of your oven (to make room for classic Southern squash casserole and your other side dishes!), really all good things. This is a really tender, soft stuffing; not as many crispy bits as when it's baked in the oven, but the recipe is still 100% delicious and gets gobbled up every time we make it.
PS, if you're looking for a turkey recipe, I have a delicious baked turkey breast, smoked turkey breast, and foolproof roast turkey that are all really special and delicious depending on what you're looking for!
Prep This in Advance
To prep this in advance, you can make the entire dish and store it in the slow cooker in the fridge, then just cook it 4 hours before you'd like to eat. For a little less prep, make the sausage/veggie mixture a few days in advance, then add it to the bread cubes, apple, and liquids right before cooking.
Enjoy this slow cooker stuffing! It is delicious, so simple, and goes perfectly on a Thanksgiving plate.
More Easy Recipes for Thanksgiving
Recipe
Crock Pot Stuffing with Sausage and Apples
Ingredients
- 1 large loaf crusty bread cut into cubes (8-10 cups when cut)
- ½ medium onion finely diced
- 2 stalks celery finely diced
- ½ teaspoon poultry seasoning
- 1 pound sausage any kind
- 1 apple diced
- ½ stick melted butter
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ½ cups chicken stock
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt and several grinds of black pepper
Instructions
- A day or two in advance, let the bread cubes dry in a bowl or the slow cooker uncovered before making the stuffing.
- Preheat a large skillet to medium-high. Add the sausage and cook for 15 - 20 minutes, breaking up with a spoon, until the sausage is crumbly, browned, and cooked through.
- Add the onion and celery to the sausage with the salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning and cook for 2-3 minutes more to soften the veggies just a bit.
- Add the bread cubes, apple, and sausage mixture to the slow cooker. In a bowl, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, and stock. Pour the butter mixture over all the ingredients, and stir to combine.
- Press the stuffing into the slow cooker with the back of a spoon, then cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours until the edges are slightly crusty and the center of the stuffing is set.
- Taste the stuffing and add another sprinkle of salt right before serving if you'd like. Serve hot straight from the slow cooker.
Notes
This recipe was originally published in 2013 and has been updated with new instructions, more butter, and better pictures.
We loved this slow cooker stuffing recipe! Such great flavor!
Made this as a side for roast chicken and my family loved it!
Love finding new crock pot recipe! This was great and managed to get rid of the sausages I had in the freezer
Can't wait to try this stuffing for Thanksgiving!
Yummo! This looks great
This stuffing is wonderful! The slow cooker makes it so convenient, and it's perfectly flavored.
This is exactly how I made my Thanksgiving stuffing this year. Love the apple and sausage combination.
What kind of Apple do you prefer to use?
Anything at all that you like will work!
Have you tried doubling the recipe? That is not going to go very far with our crowd.
6 cups of bread cubes will yield enough for 6-10, keeping in mind that you'll have lots of other sides at a big holiday meal! Doubling or trippling the recipe will work fine, you just don't want the slow cooker to be more than about 2/3 full once you mash the stuffing down.