Meat Stuffing with Turkey and Bacon

Side view of stuffing in white casserole dish, with green cloth, stuffing in white bowl and chestnuts in brown dish in background.

This easy meat stuffing with ground turkey and bacon is a delicious side dish, perfect for the holiday season. It is full of festive flavours, simple to make and ready in under an hour.

Course Side

Cuisine International

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 40

Total Time 55

Servings servings

Calories 395kcal

Author Monika Dabrowski

Equipment

Medium sized casserole dish, approx. 6 cm deep
Large pan

Ingredients

1.1 pounds ground turkey approx. 7% fat
7.05 ounces smoked streaky bacon chopped
1 onion finely chopped
½ celery stalk finely chopped
4 tablespoons white wine
3.17 ounces chestnuts ready-to-eat, roughly chopped
¼ cup dried sweetened cranberries
4 tablespoons parsley finely chopped
3 tablespoons fresh sage leaves finely chopped, or 1½ teaspoons dried
1½ teaspoons rosemary leaves finely chopped
⅓ teaspoon onion granules, nutmeg and pepper each
¼ teaspoon allspice powder
⅔ teaspoon fine sea salt
2 slices of stale bread broken up into chunks
4 tablespoons olive oil

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 F/ 190 C/ gas mark 5.
Heat up 2 tablespoons of the oil, add the onion and celery and fry over a low/medium heat for 3 minutes stirring occasionally. Add the cranberries, wine and continue frying for another minute stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, stir in the sage, rosemary and bread pieces and leave to cool.
In a frying pan heat up 2 tablespoons of oil and fry the bacon pieces until they start changing colour. Combine with the meat, chestnuts, spices and seasoning, parsley and the onion mixture.
Transfer the mixture to a medium casserole dish, drizzle with a little oil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve.

Notes

Meat: I recommend using dark turkey meat (thigh meat) rather than turkey breast which is too dry for a stuffing recipe. You could also use ground pork instead if you prefer. I chose lean streaky smoked bacon as it adds a bit of nice smoky flavour as well as moisture into the stuffing. You can discard the fat after frying the bacon or add it into the casserole along with the bacon if you prefer. Alternatively use the fat to drizzle over the casserole instead of oil.
Herbs: You can use your own combination of herbs rather than my recommendations.
Best served immediately.
Refrigerate the leftovers, covered, for up to 3 days.
Freeze the casserole, unbaked, covered, for up to 3 months. Bake from frozen

Nutrition