- 14 hours ago
Today on Epicurious, we’ve asked professional chefs Melba Wilson, Darrell Holder, and Chris Morocco to give us their unfiltered, honest reviews of some prominent boxed stuffing found on supermarket shelves. Which mix comes closest to homemade Thanksgiving stuffing, and which should you avoid at all costs?
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00:00We've gathered three professional chefs to blind taste test every boxed stuffing mix
00:05we could get our hands on to see which ones meet their standards.
00:12All of the boxed stuffings have been prepared following the cooking instructions on their
00:16packaging. Natural variants may occur. Stovetop. Stuffing mix for turkey.
00:23So if this was Smell-O-Vision, wow, I'm getting a lot of good fresh herbs in here.
00:28Or they smell fresh. Probably not because they're from a box.
00:31Looks like rice. Like the bread got a little too dry and broke apart in the packaging process.
00:37Kind of wet and a little bit clumpy.
00:41My ideal boxed stuffing is one that doesn't taste like it's from a box.
00:46I'm looking for a crispy outer texture with a nice creamy soft inner texture.
00:53Moist but not soggy.
00:56So the size of the bread is really important. Something too small, too bitsy is going to have
01:01a tendency to get soggy, be wet, and be a little bit claggy.
01:05It's all about the seasoning for me.
01:07You need an adequate amount of salt.
01:09Sage pairs very well with most poultry.
01:12Any combination of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
01:16I'm definitely looking for vegetables. I feel like it adds a depth of flavor.
01:21The richness and meatiness to it.
01:23Ultimately, something that takes me back to warm, wonderful memories of home.
01:29Let's dig in.
01:31You smell the herbs, but when you taste it, they don't really come through.
01:35I'm not really getting a great depth at all.
01:38Salt and bread pretty much is what you're tasting.
01:40This is lacking in a little bit of fat for me.
01:43It's lacking in the kind of vegetable-based aromatics that I'm looking for.
01:48It could very well be that because they're using dried herbs.
01:51It definitely loses some of the impact that a fresh herb will give you in your dish.
01:55Because you can smell it from a mile away, but you just don't get the taste.
02:00When I went to pick it up, it fell off my fork.
02:02So moist, but not moist enough for me.
02:05Very grainy.
02:06It has a lot of moisture content to it that is going to resist incorporating other liquids that
02:12carry potentially more flavor, like a broth.
02:15It's so important that the bread is dried out in advance.
02:19I'll slice my bread, and then I'll leave it on a rack for about an hour, and then I will bake it,
02:25and the oven will help to continue the dehydration process.
02:28While some people may think that using stale bread is okay, I'm here to tell you, it's absolutely not.
02:36When bread gets stale in ambient air, it gets very tough, and I think flavor is actually impacted.
02:44Stale bread is going to give you stale stuffing.
02:48I'm going to get stovetop stuffing.
02:52Stovetop turkey flavor.
02:54Oh, turkey.
02:56I didn't really taste the turkey.
02:57I did taste the stovetop, though.
02:59They're incorporating a lot of different ingredients that should be bringing almost
03:04kind of like a natural MSG quality, like hydrolyzed soy protein.
03:07This is more like a science project than it does an actual ingredient list.
03:12I mean, it says made with real turkey broth.
03:14What does that mean exactly?
03:15I imagine it's, you know, kind of like a turkey bullion product.
03:18So I did eat this growing up.
03:20I remember the commercials as a kid.
03:21But my mother was great at juju-ing things up.
03:25Stovetop chicken stuffing mix.
03:29Okay, real talk, it looks like hell.
03:32The pieces are a lot smaller.
03:33It looks almost like mashed.
03:35It's like a big clump.
03:36But it actually smells pretty good.
03:39There's a clean, straightforward meaty quality to this.
03:43This was a lot better than the last.
03:48The herbs in this one, actually, you could taste some more.
03:50I'm definitely getting some parsley in there.
03:53A thyme and sage quality to this, that dried herb.
03:56There's vegetables in it.
03:58They're definitely dehydrated because they still have a crunch to them.
04:00But they're there.
04:01So it does give it a bit more depth of flavor.
04:04It has celery in here, parsley.
04:07I got like a really nice nugget of cooked onion in here.
04:11Just that little bit of allium and its ability to transform this, you know, kind of meaty blank slate
04:18into something a little bit more sharp, a little bit more complex.
04:22Not one of my favorites and definitely too salty.
04:25Stovetop chicken.
04:27Stop it.
04:27Wow.
04:29Stovetop chicken.
04:31You actually get the chicken flavor in this one versus the turkey where you
04:35were not able to tell that that it was turkey.
04:37For a stovetop-only stuffing, honestly, I think the flavor's pretty good.
04:44Olivia's traditional stuffing.
04:47Well, this definitely has way bigger chunks than the last two previous centuries.
04:52I'm worried about whether or not the moistness and the flavor was able to penetrate
04:56because of the size of the bread.
04:58You can actually see the vegetables in this.
05:01Big chunks of celery, there's big chunks of onion.
05:04This smells 85% of the way to homemade stuffing.
05:09Okay, I may have spoken too soon.
05:11No flavor.
05:12I'm getting dry pieces of bread here.
05:15There's definitely no herbs in this.
05:17It needs all of those aromatics to really give it flavor.
05:21It's just a little bit blank.
05:24This is a case of size gone wrong.
05:27These big pieces of bread suddenly are a liability because they don't actually have great flavor.
05:34You would get parts of it that's super soggy and then parts of it that's not
05:37because certain parts of it is soaking up more of your liquid.
05:40Okay.
05:41Olivia's stuffing.
05:42I'm sorry, Olivia.
05:44I feel like I was a bit mean.
05:45You could pronounce everything that's on here.
05:47It actually looks and reads like a ingredient list for food.
05:52I actually respect them for that.
05:54Olivia's using multi-grain bread.
05:57Those are breads that are traditionally very dense.
06:00So what you would have to do is add more moisture to it, which would give it more flavor.
06:05Stuffing recipes.
06:06So yeah, coarsely chopped onion, coarsely chopped celery, a stick of butter,
06:10and then chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste.
06:13The only thing they're actually supplying is the bag of bread.
06:18You're pretty much better off going ahead and making your own stuffing.
06:24Great value.
06:26Turkey flavored stuffing mix.
06:28The bread is small.
06:29So I'm a little hesitant, but I love the coloring on it.
06:34And I can definitely see the herbs in here.
06:37It's like Rosemary Day over at the stuffing factory, huh?
06:40This is giving me maybe low budget.
06:43And it's okay to be low budget.
06:44But this, ooh, it's too much separation, guys.
06:47And no moisture.
06:48It's ricey.
06:50It has a nice flavor, to be honest with you.
06:52It's not that bad.
06:54There's some rosemary, some parsley.
06:55The seasoning is balanced very, very well.
06:59It's just something about box stuffing,
07:02where they all have that artificial taste.
07:05It's just a little bit watery.
07:06That quality of meatiness that we're looking for here feels kind of absent.
07:13Stop it.
07:14Oh my gosh.
07:15It definitely tastes every bit of 97 cents.
07:19Perhaps what you may want to do is substitute water for stock,
07:22just to give it a little more flavor.
07:26Great value.
07:27Chicken flavored stuffing mix.
07:29This one is extremely crumbly.
07:32Looks like somebody made breadcrumb stuffing.
07:33It is rife with dried herbs.
07:37Has that, you know, kind of concentrated, allume-y, onion-y kind of sharpness.
07:44This is not bad.
07:45Perhaps the croutons, the box didn't get shaken up as much as the other one did.
07:50But I'm looking at a better value here, and a better deal, and don't tell me this is great value.
07:56I have a feeling 95% of people want something quite a bit like this.
07:59This has umami.
08:01This fills your mouth.
08:04This was so much better than the last one.
08:06That's crazy, and it's the same damn thing.
08:08There's almost like a caramel-y quality to this.
08:11This is the worst one so far.
08:12It's great value, right?
08:14Uh-huh.
08:16This is great value chicken.
08:18This is another dollar brand, for sure.
08:2197 cents.
08:23I gotta say, hats off to these folks.
08:26Here we have chicken broth, chicken fat, and cooked chicken.
08:30That could be why this one tastes better to me.
08:33A lot more preservatives, though, for some strange reason.
08:39Pepperidge Farm, herb-seasoned classic stuffing.
08:43Wow.
08:43Okay.
08:44I don't know how to feel about this.
08:45It doesn't look like stuffing.
08:46This is definitely some kind of wheat flour.
08:49This has a rancid, farty, grape nut quality.
08:54The smell coming out of a Subway sandwich shop, you know?
08:57Like just billowy, hot, yeasty air.
09:02This tastes like stale bread.
09:03It's not that bad.
09:04There's an interesting quality of richness here.
09:06The depth of flavor is really immersing.
09:10I definitely am getting a buttery kind of mouth filling.
09:14I see the celery nicely hydrated.
09:17So look at that.
09:18It's beautiful.
09:19Actually beautiful for a box.
09:21It just doesn't taste like a great quality bread.
09:23There's a part of it that's just extremely chewy.
09:27Surprisingly, this one is doing it for me.
09:30Pepperidge Farms?
09:32Oh, come on now.
09:34I never met a Pepperidge Farm I didn't like.
09:37Classic stuffing.
09:38White and wheat breads blended with herbs and spices.
09:41Even in here, you can feel that there's certain pieces that's soft
09:46and certain pieces that's hard.
09:47Oh, molasses.
09:49Oh, that's definitely adding to the coloring.
09:51Molasses is going to give it a natural sweet flavor,
09:55but not as sweet as sugar.
09:59Chef's Cupboard.
10:00Chicken flavored stuffing mix.
10:02So this definitely has a lighter color to it,
10:05which means that this is definitely dehydrated, not toasted bread.
10:10Very bland.
10:11I'm also not tasting or seeing a lot of herbs or seasoning in here.
10:15There's like a sweetness to it, which is borderline offensive,
10:20but then it's almost like lacking salt.
10:22It's kind of losing itself within the garlic and onion powder of the dish.
10:26It just tastes like very soft wonder bread that you've kneaded together to like go fishing off
10:33the dock and now you're chewing it.
10:35I don't like the fact that in this one you have some that are very, very moist,
10:38like this piece.
10:39And then you have some pieces that are really, really tough to break through.
10:42One of the things that I do when I'm making stuffing is I marry the ingredients
10:48and then I let it rest together for about 20 minutes before I'm putting it in the oven.
10:52Because it's giving the bread an opportunity to really soak in all of that moisture.
11:00Chef's Cupboard.
11:01Stuffing mix, chicken flavor, butter and water.
11:04It was mediocre across the board.
11:06Guess what?
11:07There's no freaking chicken in here.
11:08All stuff that I can't pronounce.
11:10Palm oil or vegetable shortening, sugar, vegetable protein,
11:16which is like hydrolyzed corn protein, which is sort of like an MSG kind of precursor.
11:21There's no chicken in the Chef's Cupboard. Chicken flavor.
11:29Stove top, cornbread stuffing mix.
11:32Kind of looks like scrambled eggs.
11:33We're looking a little on the yellow side,
11:36so I'm hoping that it has maybe some cornbread in it.
11:38I'm not a big fan of the cornbread stuffing because it's very grainy.
11:42A little bit crumbly, but look, it's staying on the fork.
11:44It smells really good.
11:48Ooh, salty.
11:50This is like so overly concentrated.
11:53I think it's overly seasoned.
11:55There's too much salt.
11:57It's hit every flavor receptor so hard, you know?
12:00But like it's kind of used them as a punching bag.
12:03If I had to be honest, I would say this is probably the best tasting stuffing so far.
12:07I'm getting the grittiness of the cornbread, which I love.
12:10It has great herbs.
12:11I'm tasting the rosemary.
12:13I'm tasting thyme.
12:14Good depth of flavor.
12:15I can get onion.
12:16I can get garlic.
12:17The texture on this cornbread is actually pretty nice.
12:21Nice, moist.
12:22If I'm eating a stuffing, this is pretty close to how I would want it to taste.
12:26That stove top.
12:32Oh my God.
12:34Stove top cornbread.
12:38No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
12:41It definitely has cooked chicken in it.
12:43A little less salt and then we have a winner.
12:48Great Value, Cornbread Stuffing Mix.
12:51Oh, this is a normal color.
12:52A lot less yellow.
12:54A nice size.
12:54I'm getting some moisture.
12:56Wow.
12:57You said this was box.
12:59This is pretty just overall pleasant.
13:01This is actually pretty good.
13:02Very nice depth of flavor here.
13:04I'm getting the dehydrated onions in here as well as the parsley.
13:10I think I'm getting sage in here.
13:12I am definitely getting chicken stock.
13:14I'm definitely getting butter.
13:15There's definitely a little love.
13:17I'm trying to see, is this a little cornbread in here?
13:20It's like wheat bread with just a suspicion of corn.
13:25It's actually a very flavorful stuffing.
13:29O-M-G-G-G-V.
13:33G-V, great value.
13:36Cornbread, you brought me back to life, G-V.
13:38These are hitting.
13:39This has chicken fat, chicken broth, and cooked chicken,
13:44which is one of the reasons why it is so flavor forward.
13:47I think that they could have this be like a couple clicks more corny.
13:51It's just not cornbread.
13:55Olivia's cornbread stuffing.
13:58Nice size chunk on the bread.
14:00This is another one of those stuffing mixes that seems to be trying to make a statement
14:05with whole wheat.
14:07I wouldn't say this is what my stuffing looks like,
14:09but this is what stuffing looks like when I go to other people's houses.
14:11It's very mild flavored.
14:16You could tell that there's seasoning in there, but it's just not enough.
14:20One of which could just be old spices, you know, like old black pepper.
14:23The bread itself is soggy on some parts and hard on the other.
14:27And this is what happens when the croutons are too big,
14:30and they're not able to soak up the flavor.
14:32I want you to watch as I break this apart.
14:35No moisture in here.
14:36Hey, that's me hitting the bread.
14:38This is Olivia's stuffing.
14:41So this is another of Olivia's.
14:43If they call this corn, I'm upset.
14:45Are they calling this cornbread?
14:47No, no, no, no, no.
14:48This is Olivia's cornbread dressing.
14:53If you stuff it inside of a chicken or a turkey, you have stuffing.
14:58If you cook it in a pan, then it's dressing.
15:01The dressing is pretty much a Southern term because we feel that it's dressing the bird.
15:07However, it's the same thing.
15:08It's like potato, potato.
15:09I am not getting cornbread with this at all.
15:12They're using so many different flours in this.
15:14Unbleached white wheat flour, wheat, malted barley flour, then cornmeal, then whole wheat flour.
15:21We'll add other flours that will have more of a gluten structure
15:25to keep the bread more structurally sound during the production.
15:29So this box is actually pretty expensive.
15:31It's a $9 box of stuffing.
15:34When we compared it to the previous stuffing, that was only a dollar.
15:38The great value cornbread had a lot more flavor.
15:40The structure was a lot better.
15:42Olivia, call me. Call me.
15:47Trader Joe's cornbread stuffing mix.
15:49Looks like it was dehydrated bread versus toasted bread.
15:53Very pale in color.
15:54There's definitely no crispiness to it whatsoever.
15:56It all looks very soggy.
15:58The aroma is very, very forward.
16:01Kind of an herbaceous chicken broth kind of vibe to it.
16:06Oh, it's so soggy.
16:08I think that's due to it just solely being dehydrated.
16:11That, of course, is a big turn off.
16:13You can tell just by looking at the color of the bread and the texture
16:17that it wasn't baked long enough.
16:19I think my preference would probably still always be for a stuffing to be baked,
16:23not just prepared using a stovetop method.
16:26They probably didn't let it dry out because as soon as that moisture hit it, the bread broke down.
16:32And what happens is it totally dissolves.
16:34It can't hold taste and there's no balance because there's only mush.
16:39There is a savory umami quality to this.
16:42Just enough richness.
16:43There's a really nice black pepper quality here and there is like a very nice kind of parsley
16:51and verdant, you know, kind of sensation of just like just herbs everywhere.
16:58I don't think it's the best looking necessarily, but I think flavor-wise this is up there.
17:03Trader Joe's.
17:04Trader Joe's.
17:06So this is a mix of corn bread and white bread.
17:11It's not corn bread, guys.
17:13It's not.
17:13It doesn't have the sweetness of corn bread.
17:16It doesn't have the texture of corn bread.
17:18Powdered chicken fat.
17:20So you're not getting any chicken in here, any real chicken.
17:23Oh, I'm so disappointed.
17:25Pepperidge Farm.
17:28Corn bread classic stuffing.
17:30I feel like I'm seeing actual distinct bits of cornmeal, like large pieces of cornmeal in this.
17:36Unfortunately, like it just has like a little bit of that slightly sour quality of like a speed
17:41risen whole wheat bread.
17:44I've certainly gotten this quality from the Olivias.
17:48And any time there was whole wheat bread in the mix, I feel like I've had that sensation.
17:54Do y'all hear that?
17:56Not what I want in my stuffing.
17:58Feels like a drumbeat.
18:01There's definitely vegetables in here.
18:03You got your onions and your celery, which makes me happy.
18:07This is like pretty much the only stuffing where I can definitively say I taste corn.
18:13So I guess that's something.
18:15The parts that do have seasoning, the seasoning is pretty good.
18:18You definitely get your chicken stock.
18:20You can definitely taste the butter in it.
18:22But as far as the herbs and the salt goes, I feel like it's kind of lacking.
18:27Not enough liquid.
18:28Somebody didn't get any love.
18:29The texture just is a bit of a disaster.
18:32Looks like it was pulled apart unevenly.
18:35Or if it's in a bag, it could have been handled really roughly.
18:39I'm thinking that this is Pepperidge Farm in a bag, cornbread stuffing.
18:51Ah, Pepperidge Farms.
18:53It does not say chicken.
18:56It says classic stuffing.
18:58So no protein in here.
19:00It's just lackluster.
19:04William Sonoma, organic cornbread stuffing mix.
19:07It definitely looks like it was toasted, which always makes me happy.
19:10Not nearly as bad as what we've been seeing.
19:13There's definitely vegetables.
19:14There's definitely herbs.
19:16It smells great.
19:19It's actually not that bad.
19:20This is interesting.
19:21There's great depth of flavor.
19:23I'm getting butter.
19:24I'm getting salt, garlic, onion powder.
19:26I'm definitely tasting rosemary in there.
19:28It's balanced.
19:30Definitely not too salty.
19:31I'm getting the celery.
19:33I'm getting the onions.
19:35I'm getting some parsley in here.
19:37I'm not mad at the stuffing at all.
19:39It's one of the more successful examples of balancing it out.
19:43I do not like the size of the cubes.
19:45They're a little too big for me.
19:47I'm enjoying the flavor.
19:48It's just I got to get to it.
19:50It's a job to get to the flavor in this.
19:52So we still have a little bit of that bitter flat quality to this bread,
19:57which feels like it's got some proportion of whole wheat and maybe even some corn in there.
20:02I'm tasting this and I know there's definitely cornbread in here.
20:06And I know that because I'm getting the graininess.
20:08However, it's not a lot.
20:10I have to search for it.
20:13Williams-Sonoma's organic cornbread stuffing.
20:16The ingredients list is only three lines on here, which is amazing,
20:19because that tells you that there's not a lot of preservatives or chemicals
20:23inside the actual product itself, which is great.
20:25But I also don't think it's amazing.
20:28And for $20 compared to the great value, they're in different worlds.
20:34You still have to buy your vegetables, which is your onions and your celery.
20:39And you also have to get chicken stock.
20:41So you're not just spending $20 to make stuffing.
20:44You're spending more like $35 to make stuffing.
20:47So that right there alone does not make it worth it to me.
20:50William-Sonoma, organic brioche stuffing mix.
20:55It looks great.
20:56You can tell that the bread has been toasted.
20:58The chunks of bread are humongous.
21:02It's not very good at all.
21:04It's actually quite bland.
21:05So the only thing I'm getting here is soggy bread.
21:08I genuinely don't want to be mean about some of these things.
21:11I really don't.
21:12This is so devoid of character.
21:15The most you can say for it is, oh, like the onion and the celery are nice.
21:18And like, we did that.
21:20The liquid is not evenly distributed throughout.
21:22So you get some pieces that are super crispy and some pieces that are super soggy.
21:26It's being held together just by the skin of the bread.
21:29But the insides are already broken down.
21:31So this tells me that they use the wrong type of bread.
21:34It could possibly be a brioche.
21:37Some kind of enriched bread.
21:39Richer breads, interestingly, like you'd think they'd be better, right?
21:42But there's a certain way in which you can never quite force out enough water content
21:50and have it imbibe enough, you know, kind of savory stock and fat and other flavors.
21:56Because it has egg in it, it tends to get soggy quicker than normal breads would.
22:01And it doesn't toast as hard as a normal bread would.
22:05That's weird.
22:06William Sonoma's Organic Brioche Stuffin'.
22:08They really like putting organic on stuff, huh?
22:10I'm giving you a new name, William No-Ma.
22:13William No-Ma Stuffin'.
22:16No more stuffin' for you.
22:17It's a sea salt, garlic, and rosemary extract.
22:21It didn't put a lot in here as far as flavor goes.
22:24$20 and you're treating me like this?
22:26Brioche doesn't have a lot of flavor to begin with.
22:28That's kind of why it's so popular.
22:30It's a very malleable flavor.
22:32You could do a lot of things to it, so if you don't do anything to it,
22:34you're not really gonna have any flavor.
22:38William Sonoma, Organic Focaccia Stuffing Mix.
22:42Aromatically, like, there's something promising happening here.
22:46You can smell the butter.
22:47You can smell all the goodness in there.
22:49This stuffing has a lot of herbs, so it's already enticing me.
22:53Richer, toastier.
22:55Unfortunately, though, I'm definitely seeing some dried pieces in here
23:00and some super soggy pieces.
23:02I could taste the chicken flavor in there, but that's it.
23:07If there are herbs in there, it's very faint.
23:10I'm not getting any salt.
23:11I'm getting, like, a touch of dried rosemary, though.
23:13There's something, like, a little bit more kind of Italian.
23:17Right in the middle here, the bread is very,
23:21very soft and gooey and delicious and flavorful.
23:25But then I have these other pieces that it's just not consistent.
23:29This is probably one of the lowest quality stuffings that we've had so far.
23:33What's really dangerous are the darn croutons, because it's gonna break a tooth. Look.
23:37So if you use a bread that has more air pockets in it,
23:45I would say that that's gonna soak up your liquid faster than a more dense style bread,
23:52which is causing it to be mush. And whatever was at the bottom of the pan didn't get a chance to soak any up.
23:57Focaccia?
23:58I'm gonna go with Williams-Sonoma, just a different style of bread used.
24:02Oh, don't do it!
24:06This is a focaccia-style stuffing.
24:09Williams-Sonoma, now, I told you to stop making this stuffing.
24:12So it has all of the ingredients, but the wrong type of bread.
24:15It's a stretch at best to say that this is focaccia, but I think it's capturing some amount of the essence of focaccia.
24:23I think that Williams-Sonoma wanted to give you a reason as to why they were charging you $20 for this,
24:29so they put a focaccia in there, but it's not a good bread to use for stuffing.
24:35Aliyah's gluten-free savory stuffing.
24:38It does not look like stuffing whatsoever. It actually looks like couscous.
24:43Looks like quinoa. Love the addition of carrots.
24:46Sometimes, like, carrot is so welcome, and other times, I'm like, why are you here?
24:51Just be happy with your onion and your garlic and your celery. Get out of here!
24:57The celery and the carrots are all bigger than the what? Than the stuffing itself!
25:02Wow! Did you guys see what happened? It all separated. It couldn't come together.
25:08Oh, gluten-free bread? Something that, like, wants to kind of fall apart a little bit more readily?
25:16While I didn't enjoy the texture in terms of the bread component,
25:20what I really loved was the crunch of the carrots, the celery, and the onion.
25:25I could taste the chicken stock.
25:27Very flavor-forward.
25:28Flavor-wise, like, there's just enough kind of dried herb and aromatics going on.
25:35Whatever the grains are or seeds used to make this bread, I think maybe something is just, like,
25:42giving a quality of the flavor that I'm just not entirely expecting.
25:47A little bit nuttier and seedier than you maybe bargained for, but it's not, like, it's not bad.
25:54Don't tell me this is gluten-free.
25:57It's, uh, Aaliyah's best taste ever. Savory stuffing.
26:01Well, Aaliyah, you were right about that. Definitely the best taste.
26:04So this contains white rice flour, tapioca flour, and brown rice flour.
26:09Tapioca flour kind of acts as, like, the gluten in the bread,
26:13so it will kind of, like, hold everything together.
26:15For, like, a gluten-free, off-the-shelf solution, I don't think it's bad.
26:20I think, you know, you could just double down on some of the herb quality here.
26:25Just really hit it with some black pepper.
26:28This stuffing definitely beat out all of the Williams-Sonoma box stuffing so far.
26:34Chef's Cupboard. Classic herbs and spices Hawaiian stuffing mix.
26:38Well, you definitely didn't save the best for last. Not by the looks of things.
26:42It's very stodgy texture. It's, like, mushing into a paste.
26:49Saved the best for last, huh?
26:50Maybe you actually can judge a book by its cover.
26:54It's kind of sweet.
26:55What I am getting is sugar. Sugar and more sugar.
27:00I'm getting thyme and rosemary, um, but the sweetness is kind of killing it for me.
27:04No balance of flavor.
27:05Whatever kind of bread they used might have a higher sugar content than no more.
27:10Like a Hawaiian roll?
27:12You never want your stuffing to be sweet, because if you are a person who has a traditional Thanksgiving
27:18dinner, you're gonna have a cranberry sauce on your, on your table.
27:22In the running for my least favorite.
27:25Chef's Cupboard.
27:26Hawaiian stuffing.
27:27Made with Hawaiian bread.
27:28It's too soft, and it's way too sweet.
27:31A tender, very moist, somewhat sweet bread is, like, actually kind of antithetical to what
27:37you probably want in a stuffing.
27:39I don't recommend this at all.
27:40My grandma used to say, Melby K-I-S-S.
27:46KISS, which is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid.
27:48Let the flavors come through and speak for themselves.
27:52I think the ideal bread for stuffing, it's light, it's got an open structure,
27:57it's got a pretty defined crust, it's got a slight chew to it.
28:01When you start to add in a bunch of additional stuff, your flavors get lost.
28:06Now let's see which boxed stuffing mix our chefs liked the most and the least.
28:10Today, my favorite stuffing was the Olivia's traditional stuffing.
28:14They added a lot of different herbs and seasonings that you did not see in the other brands.
28:20My favorite stuffing today was Pepperidge Farm Herbs Seasoned Classic Stuffing.
28:25I loved the fact that I was able to taste all of the seasons.
28:30The herbs were there, but also it held together nicely.
28:33I thought the great value stuffings, honestly, like, pound for pound, were pretty good.
28:40Somebody really thought about the overall flavor balance going on with those.
28:44I think the goal of this category of product is to just have a flavorful stuffing mixture
28:49that's very easy and very streamlined to achieve without spending a lot of money.
28:55And great value did that.
28:56My least favorite today was definitely all of the Williams-Sonoma brands.
29:01I can't justify a $20 price tag for something that's lacking in every department.
29:07My least favorite today was Chef's Cupboard Hawaiian Stuffing.
29:14Who told them to use Hawaiian rolls in stuffing?
29:18It was just sweet, sweet, more sweet.
29:20My least favorite was the stovetop cornbread flavor.
29:23I mean, it's just...
29:26Somebody just, like, hit the over-do-it switch on, like, the Flavorizer 2000.
29:33What we saw was the more that people just kept it pretty simple and streamlined,
29:39you know, meaty flavor, herbs, seasonings, was pretty much the way to go.
Recommended
22:40
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