Stuffing or Dressing? And What About Food Safety?

What does your family call it? Dressing or stuffing?

No matter what you call it, people are passionate about it at Thanksgiving. Stuffing can be very personal, and everyone seems to have a favorite way to make it. The options are many. Chestnuts or oysters? Cornbread or white bread? Giblets or not? Sausage with sage or chorizo?

I’m not going to debate the ingredients. Those are personal decisions and family traditions. Instead, I want to talk food safety.

Stuffing? Or Dressing?

Most food safety folks agree that, for optimal safety and uniform doneness, stuffing should not be cooked inside the bird. The primary reason for this recommendation is that the stuffing is a great place for bacteria to grow. Think about it. Stuffing is wet and warm, and it goes into the deepest part of the turkey, the spot that will take the longest to heat.

Sometimes the turkey meat is cooked before the stuffing reaches the recommended minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit. When this happens, there are two options:

  1. Keep cooking the bird and get overcooked meat (this is the recommended alternative).
  2. Eat underdone stuffing (which could be risky).

If you’re cooking stuffing inside the bird, make sure that that stuffing comes to a safe temperature. I’m sorry for the indelicacy, but think about what was in the bird’s cavity before you put the stuffing there.

Holiday Plate

Now if you MUST put the stuffing in the bird, there are a few tips that you can try in order to get the stuffing fully cooked while keeping the meat moist and juicy.

  • If you’re using ingredients like oysters, giblets, or sausage in your stuffing, be sure to cook them completely before mixing them with the bread and vegetables. They can still be hot when added to the stuffing and placed inside the turkey, which will help speed the heating time of the stuffing itself.
  • Stuff the turkey loosely. This tasty goodness needs room to expand. If you have extra stuffing that won’t fit in the bird, cook it in a separate casserole dish or freeze it immediately. Don’t keep raw stuffing in the refrigerator.
  • If you purchased a frozen, pre-stuffed turkey, be sure to follow the instructions on the package.
  • Don’t stuff a turkey that you’re going to cook in a fryer. The oil needs to be able to flow inside the bird to allow for quick and even cooking.
  • When testing for doneness, put a thermometer into the deepest part of the stuffing. Yes, this goes for stuffing in a casserole dish too. Make sure that the stuffing reaches 165 degrees Fahrenheit before you take it out of the oven.
  • After dinner, get all of the stuffing out of the turkey and served as soon as possible. If there are leftovers, refrigerate them within 2 hours of their coming out of the oven.
  • When reheating leftover stuffing (is there really ever any leftover stuffing?), use your thermometer again and make sure that the reheated stuffing reaches 165 degrees F. Don’t guess or simply eyeball it. Stuffing is a great place for food-borne illness causing bacteria to multiply and the risk is not worth it.
  • Use leftover stuffing within 2 days.

Cooking the Stuffing

Oh and one more stuffing tip. To save time on Thanksgiving morning, you can gather the stuffing’s wet and dry ingredients the day before you need to cook. Chop the vegetables and combine all the wet ingredients in one bowl. Combine all the dry ingredients in another, then store the bowls safely and mix their contents together just before you stuff the bird. Be sure to keep all the perishable items in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them. This includes the chopped vegetables.

Whether you call it dressing or stuffing, it’s how you take care of it that’s important. Have a food safe holiday!

By Cheryle Jones Syracuse, MS, Professor Emeritus at The Ohio State University

Want to spread the word about Thanksgiving food safety? Get your very own copy of this free handout today!

Thanksgiving Food Safety

The Nutrition Education Store is chock-full of holiday and food safety resources too. Here’s a quick preview of a few of our favorites…

Food Safety Temperature Guide Poster

Food Safety PowerPoint Show and Handout Set

Food Safety Bookmark Set

Food Safety Poster

Pumpkin Ideas for Halloween and Beyond

Cheryl Sullivan is here with a perfect pumpkin update!

Pumpkin FunDid you know that a single 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin provides 4 grams of fiber, no fat or cholesterol, and only 50 calories? Pumpkin also has more beta-carotene per serving than any other common food. Your body converts beta-carotene to vitamin A, and that may protect against heart disease and some cancers.

Let’s Talk About Fresh Pumpkins

Fresh pumpkins are available from late summer to well into the fall. Small sugar (a.k.a pie) pumpkins are the best for eating, though you can eat the large ones, too. Be sure the pumpkins are clean and dry, then store them a cool, dry, and dark place. Pumpkins may last for several months, depending on the storage conditions.

Cooking with Pumpkins

To prepare a pumpkin for cooking, cut off the top. Flip it over and cut a thin slice off of the bottom. That way, the pumpkin will sit flat on your cutting board. Using a large knife, cut slices of the skin off from top to bottom, working your way around the pumpkin, just like you would cut the skin off of an orange. Halve the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp, then cut the pumpkin into chunks.

To make pumpkin puree, steam those pumpkin chunks until they’re quite tender. Drain them, then puree in a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, mash them as fine as you can with a potato masher. Press the mixture through a fine sieve or coffee filter and voila! Pumpkin puree is yours.

You can also bake unpeeled, seeded pumpkin halves at 325° until tender. This takes about 1 hour. Scoop the flesh out of the shell and puree it. Since this puree will be drier than the puree in the other method, you won’t need to drain it.

All homemade pumpkin puree may be frozen for up to six months.

You can also make pumpkins into a tasty side dish. Cut a peeled, fresh pumpkin into cubes and toss the cubes with 1 tablespoon oil, 2 tablespoons thawed apple juice concentrate, and a dash of nutmeg. Put the whole shebang into a baking pan coated with cooking spray and roast in a 400° oven for 30 minutes or until tender, stirring once.

Make a delicious and speedy pumpkin soup by heating 1 15-ounce can of pumpkin with 1 can of low-sodium broth, 1/2 cup of water or skim milk, and 1 teaspoon of mild curry powder. Heat the whole thing in a saucepan and serve warm.

You can even use pumpkin puree to make your own quick pumpkin ice cream. Soften 1 pint nonfat vanilla ice cream, then fold in 1/2 cup canned pumpkin, 2 tablespoons sugar (or artificial sweetener), and 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Refreeze, then scoop into 4 dishes to serve.

What About Canned Pumpkin?

Canned pumpkin puree is easy to use and works very well in recipes. Be sure to purchase plain pumpkin and not the pie filling. Pumpkin pie filling is loaded with sugar and other ingredients. Read the label carefully to see which one you are buying.

What are you doing with pumpkins this year?

By Cheryl Sullivan, MA, RD.

Looking for other seasonal resources? Check out the holiday materials in the Nutrition Education Store! My personal favorites include…

Holiday Survival Tips Poster

Holiday Challenge Toolkit

Holiday Exercise Poster

Salad Secrets

I had a mission. I was going to take pictures of all 1,000 recipes in the free recipe database.

Salad Secrets Cookbook and Demo Set

It didn’t seem especially daunting. I figured that I would print a copy of each recipe, then sort everything into piles of similar recipes. I would tackle salads, then fruits, pasta, rice, chicken, fish, veggies, beans, soups, holidays, desserts, etc.

As I began to sort, I was blown away by the hundreds and hundreds of salad recipes. There seemed to be way more salads than anything else. In fact, we had roughly 10 times the number of salads than recipes in any other category.

Since I had so many healthful salad recipes, I decided to take pictures of those first.

Little did I know that this would take a whole summer.

You see, once I started taking pictures of the salads, I got a little sidetracked. There were just so many wonderful recipes to share. I ended up putting all the salad recipes into a book and combining them with an instruction set. That’s how Salad Secrets was born.

I also posted some of my favorite salads and presentation tips on the Food and Health blog, and they quickly became some of the most popular posts I’d ever written. I shouldn’t really have been surprised — who doesn’t want to learn about healthful new ways to make tasty and creative salads?

Carrot Cake Salad from the Salad Secrets Cookbook

One of my best salad features was the carrot cake salad. It uses the same spices as carrot cake and can be served dessert-style in a stemmed glass. I was so pleased with the resources that I’d made to help people fall in love with salad. In fact, that delight soon led to the creation of a nutrition poster called Fall in Love with Salad.

Who knew that all of those wonderful nutrition education materials would come out of a simple photography project?

Of course, I eventually did get back on track. I finished my pile of salads, and you can see the recipes (with photos!) in the salad section of the free recipe database.

Once the salads were done, I decided to tackle fruit.

Well, that was my intention.

Home Run Cooking Book and Demo Program

The recipes just kept inspiring me, and before I knew it, I had compiled my favorite show-stopping fruit desserts into Fruit Tooth, a cookbook that helps people turn a sweet tooth into a “fruit tooth” with simple and delicious fruit desserts.

At that point, I decided to roll with it, turning the holiday recipes into Holiday Secrets, my best healthful holiday cooking book yet. That was quickly followed by the Home Run Cooking Book, which is basically a compilation of my very favorite recipes that I’ve ever created.

So, here we are in 2014, and I’ve still got a few stacks of recipes to photograph. Plus, I’m constantly adding new and exciting recipes to the database, which means that my to-do list is always growing.

But really, I’m sure I’ll finish it all any minute now.

By Judy Doherty PC II and Founder of Food and Health Communcations 

PS Because I love you, here’s a free handout with one of my latest salad creations, the Chicken Fajita Salad. Get your copy today!