Easy Oyster Dressing Recipe: Southern Thanksgiving Side Dish (2024)
This year skip your typical stuffing recipe. Instead, try this Southern holiday side dish instead! Check out this Easy Oyster Dressing recipe!
This Easy Oyster Dressing recipehas been sponsored by Sister Schubert’s.
Dressing recipe for Thanksgiving! It’s a Southern side dish favorite!
Until I was a teenager we moved around a lot with the Air Force and Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t very eventful. Neither of my parents really cooked.
So the idea of making a huge turkey dinner for just three people seemed like more trouble and work than it was worth. Most of my memories as a child on Thanksgiving involved some sort of restaurant.
Thanksgiving dinner forever changed at 13 when my grandparents came to live with us. They were both used to a full spread of holiday dishes and my grandma had no problems getting up before the sun to get the turkey prepped and in the oven. As I said, my mom wasn’t much of a cook so my grandma took it upon herself to teach me how and I quickly became her Thanksgiving sous chef.
My grandma was a firm believer in working smarter, not harder. Especially on Thanksgiving.
She wasn’t about to waste precious time making homemade rolls when she could get the same taste, faster and easier by popping Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls in the oven 5-10 minutes before dinner was ready. She would time things just right so that as people started sitting down at the table, the warm basket of Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls would appear.
Oyster Dressing Recipe
Influenced by the other grandma and my Florida roots, I combined our family tradition of Sister Schubert’s Dinner Yeast Rolls with a Southern Thanksgiving staple in this easy oyster dressing recipe.
My uncle’s a fisherman, so when the entire family gets together for the holidays, seafood is usually found. I would assume there was probably some seafood at the first Thanksgiving as well!
How do you make oyster dressing?
My oyster dressing recipe is almost completely homemade. I took a few shortcuts by using a cornbread stuffing mix and the frozen dinner rolls. But everything else is pretty fresh.
You can read the complete recipe on the printable recipe card below.
To make oyster dressing, you need a can of oysters and some oyster juice. You’ll brown the onion, celery, and garlic in some butter first. Then you’ll boil chicken broth with the oyster juice. This is what gives it so much flavor!
After that starts to boil, remove it from the heat and add this cajun seasoning (for a really amazing kick!), stuffing mix and the oysters and place everything over some cubed cooked dinner rolls. Mix this up just a bit with a fork – but don’t over mix it.
What you have is a powerful Thanksgiving side dish everyone will love.
What is the difference between stuffing and dressing?
Literally, stuffing is the bread mixture that you stuff inside the turkey. When you make it as a stand-alone side dish, it’s dressing. If you like dressing, you might like this rice dressing recipe.
"Stuffing is cooked in the cavity of the turkey, so the juices soak into the ingredients, making it more flavorful.Dressing gets cooked on its own and needs extra liquid to make it flavorful." So stuffing is cooked inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside the bird, usually in a casserole dish.
Mignonette is a classic sauce for serving with oysters. A classic, proper one is made with just red wine vinegar and eschalots (called shallots in the US). No messing around with oil, no sugar, no salt. It's meant to be clear and pink and pure, not sweet, oily and brown.
There's nothing quite like fresh oysters on the half shell. Keep it simple by pairing with potatoes or fresh corn. Or if you're feeling bold, you can also recreate the experience of your favorite steakhouse with a classic surf and turf theme. Dishes like flank steak and beef lettuce wraps are sure to do the trick.
While oysters aren't commonly associated with a Thanksgiving feast, they actually played a larger role in the origination of the holiday than you'd think. The mollusks were likely feature prominently on the tables of early American settlers, unlike a turkey.
The most popular Thanksgiving side in the U.S. is mashed potatoes, which reigns supreme in 9 states. The second most popular side is rolls, being favored by Utah, Florida, North Carolina, and West Virginia. 74% of Americans expect to be eating at least 4 side dishes on Thanksgiving.
But for the Thanksgiving side dish in the South, the term dressing was adopted in place of stuffing, which was viewed as a crude term, during the Victorian era. Although dressing and stuffing are interchangeable terms, the signature ingredient of this Thanksgiving side dish in the South is cornbread.
Sweet soy sauce or teriyaki sauce are the best options. Stir Fries - When it comes to adding umami depth and spice to stir fried dishes like ramen and rice noodles, we recommend soy sauce or black bean paste as the perfect oyster sauce alternatives.
Mix oyster sauce, rice wine, honey, sesame oil, ginger, and chilies to make a dipping sauce that can go with any roast, barbecue, or grilled dish! Got leftovers? Use it to season your next fried rice. Or, make a quick shrimp with oyster sauce out of it.
The most common uses for oyster sauce include stir-fry sauces, glazes, and marinades. Oyster sauce flavors chicken, beef, vegetables like broccoli, noodles, and rice dishes. It is an important component to cashew chicken and even a type of radish cake. Make homemade hoisin sauce or teriyaki sauce by using oyster sauce.
Foodie tradition dictates only eating wild oysters in months with the letter “r” – from September to April – to avoid watery shellfish, or worse, a nasty bout of food poisoning. Now, a new study suggests people have been following this practice for at least 4,000 years.
Medical studies show that oysters' high quantities of zinc may influence libido. In fact, they contain a higher amount of zinc per serving than any other food. Just 3 ounces of raw oysters can contain 33mg or more than 300% of the recommended daily value of zinc.
In the northern hemisphere, the old rule that native oysters should only be eaten when there's an 'r' in the month still holds true; so eat oysters from September to April. During the summer months they're busy spawning, and their flesh becomes unpleasantly soft and milky. Rock oysters are available all year round.
Millions of people across the United States will sit down to a traditional Thanksgiving meal, including turkey, potatoes, squash, corn, and cranberries.
So, to the question “What did the Pilgrims eat for Thanksgiving,” the answer is both surprising and expected. Turkey (probably), venison, seafood, and all of the vegetables that they had planted and harvested that year—onions, carrots, beans, spinach, lettuce, and other greens.
To understand the difference between the two, all you have to do is look at the cooking method. Stuffing is stuffed (literally) inside the cavity of the turkey, while dressing is roasted in a separate casserole dish.
The term dressing, per the History Channel, originated around the 1850s, when the Victorians deemed stuffing too crude for the dish to be named. This happened around the same time that the term “dark meat” began to refer to chicken legs and thighs.
When Stove Top was introduced in 1972 it was the first stuffing mix containing all the ingredients needed to typical dressing in one box. The mixture of vegetables, seasonings, herbs, spices, and baked stuffing crumbs came together in 15 minutes.
Some people insist that it should be called dressing when it hasn't actually been stuffed inside a bird. But many people insist on one term or the other regardless of how it's prepared or what's in it. The term dressing is most commonly used in the South, but it's popular in pockets throughout the US.
Introduction: My name is Francesca Jacobs Ret, I am a innocent, super, beautiful, charming, lucky, gentle, clever person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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