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Stuffing is such a part of Thanksgiving for so many people (me included), but I’ve never loved the boxed, processed stuffing mixes that just seem bland and mushy. Sure, there are some decent store-bought options, but they tend to be more pricey and I love creating new takes on classic recipes using seasonal and local ingredients.
Grain-Free Stuffing
A few years ago, I had the idea to use seasonal root vegetables like turnips and sweet potatoes as a base for a “stuffing” and experimented with different mixtures and ratios until I found this one. It is hearty, nourishing, and a beautiful addition to a Thanksgiving table!
This grain free stuffing is better when cooked outside the bird, and can easily be prepared a day or two ahead of time and reheated in a 9×13 baking dish to save time on Thanksgiving Day. The leftovers can actually be breaded in coconut flour and pan-fried to make a “bread” for leftover turkey sandwiches.
If you are hosting Thanksgiving this year, why not serve a meal with as much nutrition as it has taste?
Savory Grain-Free Stuffing
Ingredients
- 4 lbs turnips
- 3 large sweet potatoes
- 1 TBSP garlic powder
- 1 TBSP dried sage
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 1 tsp thyme
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 lb sage pork sausage optional
- 3 large onions
- 5 ribs celery
- 8 oz fresh button mushrooms
- 1 apple
- ½ cup tallow (or lard, ghee, or coconut oil)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Peel turnips and sweet potatoes and cut into ½ inch cubes.
- Grease 2 large baking sheets with oil and evenly spread the turnips and sweet potatoes in them.
- Sprinkle with some of the garlic powder, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, turmeric, pepper and salt and toss with your hands.
- Put into oven and bake for about an hour until they are soft and starting to brown, tossing a few times to brown evenly.
- While the turnips and sweet potatoes are cooking brown the sausage if you are using it.
- When sausage is cooked, remove from pan, leaving drippings.
- While the sausage is cooking, finely dice the onions and celery.
- Add the onion and celery to the pan once the sausage has cooked. You might need to add more oil.
- Dice the mushrooms and peel and dice the apple
- Add the mushrooms and apple to the pan once the onions and celery have started to soften.
- Continue cooking until all are cooked.
- Return sausage to the pan and add more of the above spices to your taste.
- Remove from heat.
- Once turnips and sweet potatoes are done, mix with the sausage/onion/celery/apple/mushroom mixture and continue mixing until well incorporated and starting to clump together.
- Transfer to a greased 9x13 baking dish and warm in oven if serving immediately or put in refrigerator, covered, if using later.
Notes
Nutrition
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What dish makes it seem like Thanksgiving for you? How do you make it healthy?
Coconut Milk Irish Cream Recipe
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This is so good. I am making it tonight for dinner because I can’t wait for Thanksgiving to roll around again!
I added 1/2 cup of almond flour to the sausage/turnip mix before baking. It tastes JUST like bread stuffing…even better!! 🙂
I have just finished making this. It’s my first AIP Thanksgiving and I was bumming to think I wouldn’t have stuffing. I should have looked at the yield first though because this recipe sure does make a lot! I hope it does indeed freeze well, Sadly, mine came out a little salty so perhaps there will be more leftovers than what other commenters have reports.
Do you think white sweet potatoes or Japanese sweet potatoes would work instead of sweet potatoes? They are milder than sweet potatoes.
I am sure it would be tasty…
Made this tonight with a roasted chicken and it was amazing! I left out the pork and it was still so delicious! One question– have you ever tried freezing this? I totally didn’t look at the servings until after I bought everything and now I have a ton of stuffing leftover (not a bad thing!). I’ll probably just eat it all this week for lunches but was thinking it would be great if I could freeze some for later. What do you think? Thanks!
Wow, I’m glad you like it so much! I haven’t tried freezing it, but I bet it would work. You could try just a small serving and see if it tastes good thawed. Let me know if you try it!
Michelle,
I was just looking in the comments to see if anyone talked about freezing the extra. Would you mind letting me know if it froze well? I have 2 big dishes and kind of want to just freeze one for Christmas lol (apparently I am lazy). Your response would be much appreciated.
Krista
Killer good! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
We loved this! My sister and I made it in the morning, and when we tasted it, we joked about just eating it ourselves and not serving it to the family! Amazing how good some vegetables and spices can taste! Although I love sausage, we didn’t have any on hand and the stuffing was totally delicious without any meat.
This looks awesome and I cant wait to try it tomorrow!!!Can you confirm that you are using turnips and not rutabaga? The turnips in our store are small, but the rutabagas are around 2lbs… Do you think rutabaga would work??
I’m sure it would! I plan to switch up the roots myself and use parsnips, my favorite.
Katie, I will try your recipe this Thanksgiving. It sounds delicious! I am surprised that you use pork. Pork is not a health food item and is the most undigestible meat that you can eat. Most of the pork is now being imported from China and raised in deplorable conditions.
I’m guessing she sources her pork locally or at least from a healthy source. There’s plenty of local farms around here that sell natural pork.
My 9 year old son is on the ketogenic diet to control his epilepsy (2 years seizure controlled in December – yeah!!). I plan to make this for Thanksgiving this year for him – slightly modified (will use yams rather than sweet potatoes given it has a slower sugar content). Can’t wait to see his reaction!