Thanksgiving Stuffing from Udi's Gluten-Free White Sandwich Bread

Okay, I confess.  Even though I have been eating largely grain free for about four years now, I cheat sometimes.  I cheat for birthday cake, I cheat for croissants in Paris and I cheat for stuffing on Thanksgiving.  (And there are a few other times I cheat, but does a girl have to tell all her secrets?)

I love turkey stuffing.  Up until now I have been eating the regular stuff.  This year is different, however.  I'm experimenting with different gluten-free and low gluten choices.  In fact, I'll be making three separate stuffings this week.

1. I've already made stuffing using Udi's Gluten-Free White Sandwich Bread.  It was quite tasty and you can find the recipe below in this posting. 
2. On Thanksgiving, I'll be making a pre-packaged gluten-free stuffing.  I'm anticipating that it will taste just fine, but I'm curious to know if the texture will be different from regular bread.
3. Also on Thanksgiving, I''m planning to go all-out and make homemade stuffing from Einkorn bread. I've already baked my loaf of Einkorn flour bread.  Einkorn is an ancient wheat that has a low gluten content.  I make my bread with sourdough starter which consumes most of the remaining gluten.  I love the Einkorn loaves and I know that this stuffing is going to taste fabulous.  I can't wait!  (For information on Einkorn flour, see here.  For information on making bread from Einkorn, see here.  For information on creating your own sourdough starter, see here.)

Since one can only have so much turkey, I stuffed and roasted a chicken with the Udi's bread stuffing a day ago.  I have to say, it tasted quite good.  The flavor was pretty much the same as for any other stuffing, but the texture was a little different.  Not bad, though.  

If you are preparing a turkey for guests, this is a stuffing you can be proud to serve to anyone.  Actually, unless you have some advanced epicureans on your guest list, it's unlikely that anyone would even know that the stuffing was made from gluten-free bread.  The Udi's seems to be a blank canvas and takes on the flavors of the poultry, the herbs, onions and the sausage.

Roast Chicken with Stuffing from Udi's Gluten-Free White Sandwich Bread

1 organic whole chicken

Olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper

For the stuffing:  

1/2 loaf of Udi's Gluten-free White Sandwich Bread

3 T olive oil

1 onion diced

1 c chopped celery

1 Italian sausage link organic

Generous fresh ground sea salt and black pepper to taste

1/2 t dried thyme

1/4 t dried sage

3/4 c organic chicken broth

Set the heat in the oven to 175 degrees and place the bread slices on the rack for 1 hour.  Remove the dried bread from the oven and cut into diced cubes for the stuffing.  In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and add the onion and celery.  Saute' until translucent and soft.  Remove the casing from the sausage link and add to the pan with the onion and celery.  Continue to saute' until sausage is fully cooked. Put the contents of the pan into a mixing bowl and add the seasonings and bread cubes.  Drizzle the chicken broth over the cubes while stirring so that entire contents gets moistened.

Spoon the stuffing into the chicken cavity, lightly packing in the entire contents.  Fasten the skin flap together with a skewer.  Place the chicken breast up in a roasting pan and rub olive oil and salt and pepper into the skin.  Bake at 375 until done.  My chicken took almost 2 hours to bake.  Test for doneness by poking the leg joints with a fork to see if the juices run clear.  If the juices are pink, the bird is not yet done.