Free up your oven with this simple and classic Crockpot Stuffing! A traditional recipe with onions, celery, and herbs, cooked to perfection in the slow cooker!
Crockpot Stuffing
My grandma makes the best stuffing. Seriously, like, ever. I normally don’t care for stuffing, but hers… I could eat it for days (and frequently do after holidays!)
But my grandma’s stuffing recipe wasn’t written down! So I’ve watched her do it about a dozen times, and finally I’ve been able to replicate it. I shared her original traditional stuffing recipe here. This Crockpot Stuffing is her famous, amazing, loved recipe turned slow cooker!
Crockpot stuffing is amazing for the holidays because it tastes just like your favorite traditional stuffing, but it also frees up your oven for the turkey!
This Crockpot Stuffing recipe includes classic ingredients such as celery and onion for fresh pops of crunchy flavor, butter, and herbs, coming together to make the best stuffing you’ve ever tasted.
What’s the Difference Between Stuffing and Dressing?
Is there even a real difference between stuffing and dressing at all?!
One difference between stuffing and dressing is geographical region. If you’re from south of the Mason-Dixie line, you probably call it dressing. Whereas, it’s typically referred to as stuffing in the more northern states.
There is also one major technical difference.
Stuffing is cooked inside the turkey (i.e. stuffed in the bird! Get it?!). On the other hand, dressing is cooked outside the turkey, typically in some sort of baking or casserole dish.
So long story short, there is technically a difference in cooking methods for stuffing and dressing. But generally, you can use the words interchangeably, and we’ll all still know what you’re talking about.
How to Dry Bread for Stuffing
In my experience the best method of making dried bread cubes is tearing the bread into bite-sized bits, laying it out on a baking sheet or large casserole dish, and letting it sit there for 2-3 days, tossing it or stirring it every once in a while to make sure all the pieces get air time.
You can also use store-bought bread cubes.
If you’re like me and you often forget to do either of those things, and now you have to make the stuffing, like TODAY, you can also use the oven method.
To quickly dry out your bread, tear it in bite-sized pieces, and lay it out on a baking sheet (you may need to do this in batches!). Then toast it in a 275°F oven for about 40-50 minutes, stirring halfway through, until bread is hard and dry (but not burnt).
To Convert Any Stuffing Recipe into Crockpot Stuffing
You can actually convert any recipe into a slow cooker version. You just need to make a few simple tweaks. So if you have a favorite stuffing recipe that you don’t want to let go of, but you still want to free up your oven, try this:
- Up the amount of eggs to at least 1 egg per one pound loaf of bread
- Use about 25% less liquid (so if your recipe calls for 1 cup liquid, use 3/4 cup)
- Butter the inside of the slow cooker to prevent sticking
- Slow cook on HIGH for 30 minutes, then LOW for an additional 3-4 hours.
How to Make Crockpot Stuffing
In a large baking dish, toss together bread cubes, celery, and onions. Add stock to the bread mixture (photo 1) and gently squeeze the mixture together with your hands to wet all of the bread (Photo 2. The bread should be damp, not soaking).
You can see in photo 3 that the stuffing mixture actually starts out in balls before I stir it again because I’m squeezing some of the excess moisture out.
Add seasonings, salt, and pepper, and stir to combine (Photos 5 and 6). Taste test at this point and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add beaten eggs and mix in until incorporated.
Place softened butter in small pats on top of the bread mixture, and gently work in with your hands trying to keep the bread shape. (Photo 7)
Transfer stuffing mixture to a buttered slow cooker. Cook on high for 30-45 minutes. Then turn to low for an additional 3-4 hours.
Pro Tips
- Customize your stuffing! We almost always add finely chopped gizzards to our stuffing, added at the same time as the eggs. You can add different meats, cheeses, and herbs to make it your own. Check out these yummy stuffing variations.
- Do NOT lift the lid while cooking, as tempting as it may be! It will make it take longer to cook as the heat will escape, and it doesn’t need stirring anyway!
- A large (6 quart or more!) slow cooker is best with this amount of stuffing. Consider opting for a programmable Crock Pot like this one since holidays get chaotic. Then you won’t have to think about it, and it won’t be overcooked.
- Bread needs to be damp but not soaking. See my video for my grandma’s “squeezing out” technique.
- Keep slow cooker on warm until ready to serve.
- Make Ahead: Prepare the stuffing from steps 1-5 up to 24 hours before. Then cover and refrigerate until ready to cook. Don’t transfer to the slow cooker until ready to cook (a cold slow cooker will increase the cook time by a lot). Increase cooking on HIGH to about 1 hour, then reduce to low and continue with the recipe.
- If you’d like to try my grandma’s original stuffing recipe, find it here.
More Holiday Recipes You’ll Love:
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce – a holiday tradition with added maple flavors that makes it the best you’ll ever have.
- Butter Herb Roasted Turkey – juicy, tender turkey with just the right seasonings.
- Southern Corn Pudding – one of our all-time family favorites! You’ll find it at all our holidays!
- Crockpot Mac and Cheese – best ever, easy, cheesy mac and cheese in the slow cooker!
- Sweet Potato Casserole – a classic side that’s so good you’ll think it’s dessert!
- See ALL Thanksgiving Recipes
Crockpot Stuffing
Ingredients
- 12 cups dried bread cubes
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1 cup chopped celery
- 1¾ cup chicken or turkey stock
- 4 tablespoons butter softened
- 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
- ½ teaspoon sage
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 eggs beaten
Instructions
- In a large baking dish, toss together bread cubes, celery, and onions.
- Add stock to the bread mixture and gently squeeze the mixture together with your hands to wet all of the bread.
- Place the softened butter in small pats on top of the wet bread mixture and gently work in with your hands.
- Add poultry seasoning, sage, salt, and pepper and work into the mixture until incorporated. Taste to test seasoning, and adjust if necessary.
- Add beaten eggs and mix in until incorporated.
- Transfer stuffing mixture to a buttered slow cooker.
- Cook on HIGH for 30-45 minutes. Then switch to LOW and cook for an additional 3-4 hours.
- Serve when done, or switch slow cooker to warm until ready to serve.
Notes
- Customize your stuffing! We almost always add finely chopped gizzards to our stuffing, added at the same time as the eggs. You can add different meats, cheeses, and herbs to make it your own. Check out these yummy stuffing variations.
- Do NOT lift the lid while cooking, as tempting as it may be! It will make it take longer to cook as the heat will escape, and it doesn’t need stirring anyway!
- A large (6 quart or more!) slow cooker is best with this amount of stuffing. Consider opting for a programmable Crock Pot like this one since holidays get chaotic. Then you won’t have to think about it, and it won’t be overcooked.
- Bread needs to be damp but not soaking. See my video for my grandma’s “squeezing out” technique.
- Keep slow cooker on warm until ready to serve.
- Make Ahead: Prepare the stuffing from steps 1-5 up to 24 hours before. Then cover and refrigerate until ready to cook. Don’t transfer to the slow cooker until ready to cook (a cold slow cooker will increase the cook time by a lot). Increase cooking on HIGH to about 1 hour, then reduce to low and continue with the recipe.
- If you’d like to try my grandma’s original stuffing recipe, find it here.
Nutrition
UPDATE INFO: This recipe was originally published in October 2015. It has been updated with new pictures, video, and detailed instructions in October 2019.
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I’m so excited to try this! I’d like to double the recipe but am curious about the cooking. Do you think it would be sufficient to just add a couple hours to the cooking time, or would you recommend using 2 separate slow cookers?
You can use just one slow cooker, as long as it all fits! I know my slow cooker can probably handle a triple or quadruple recipe (and probably will in a couple days!). I’m not even sure that you would need to add on that much time. I’d just check it at 4 hours, and know that you might have to cook it for the full 6.
What a great idea!! Saving this for the big day!
My hubby is a stuffing lover and he always takes up the entire oven making it. I hadn’t thought about putting it in a crockpot! Going to give this a try
I love that this is a crockpot stuffing recipe. It’s perfect for when you’re preparing so many recipes for the big Thanksgiving day to have one going in the crockpot. I can’t wait to try it!
Thank you for this recipe! I love finding recipes, like this one, that help me prepare a delicious Thanksgiving meal without being stuck in the kitchen all day! I’m excited to be able to visit with my friends and family while dinner cooks on it’s own!
I never thought to make stuffing in a crockpot. And since I love it so much, I decided to make a batch to test it out for Thanksgiving this year.. Will DEFINITELY be making it this year… yum!
I always try and make my dressing this way. This way I know the stuffing is cooked and the turkey cooking time is much easier and safer to manage. Delicious!
This is going to make it so much easier to prepare so many recipes for Thanksgiving day and have one already going in the slow cooker – thank you!
Stuffing is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner. You simply cannot beat homemade stuffing, boxed is no comparison!