Gwyneth Paltrow’s Classic Bread Stuffing
Can the Goop goddess make a great Thanksgiving side?
While you might think to turn to Gwyneth Paltrow for a good rom-com, you can also turn to her for a good recipe. She’s become known for a lot more than just acting. She’s a businesswoman, a cookbook author, and so much more. Can she also make great Thanksgiving stuffing? It was time to find out.
We made this stuffing as a part of our Celebrity Stuffing Recipe Showdown. The showdown is a fun project where we take four celebrity recipes — some celebrity chefs, some not so much — cook them, and then taste and compare them to see how they stack up. This match-up included Ina Garten, Gwyneth Paltrow, Emeril Lagasse, and Marilyn Monroe. We ended up with four very different stuffings!
What’s in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Stuffing?
Gwyneth’s stuffing is pretty simple, all in all, and doesn’t have a lot of frills. She calls for:
- 15 cups of bread — she says she usually uses challah, whole-grain, or ciabatta. (We used challah.)
- Butter
- Olive oil
- A “very large” onion
- Celery
- Fennel seeds and celery seeds
- Fresh rosemary
- Fresh parsley
- Vegetable stock
How Do You Make Gwyneth Paltrow’s Stuffing?
Gwyneth has you start by cubing the bread and baking it until it’s dried out but not browned. She then has you cook down the onion, celery, fennel and celery seeds, and rosemary in a mixture of butter AND oil over low heat so that everything softens but doesn’t take on any color. She wants you to cook those veggies for twenty minutes.
You let that mixture cool for a bit, then combine it with the dried out bread, along with some of the vegetable stock, and let it sit for a full hour to let the flavors come together. Once that resting period is up, you transfer it to a baking dish, top it with more stock and more butter, and bake.
How Does It Taste?
Well, friends, it tastes great. We loved this stuffing. It tastes like the classic stuffing you want on your Thanksgiving table, but the fennel gives it just enough of a unique touch to make it interesting. And it’s moist. We used challah, so our final result might be softer than if you use ciabatta, but everything held together beautifully and really felt like one cohesive dish. It also had a richness that you don’t often find in stuffing, thanks to that combination of oil and butter and the addition of extra butter on top before baking. It’s a great stuffing. Even a “go-to” stuffing, you might say.
We made this as part of our Celebrity Recipe Showdown.
To see how it stacked up, read on here:
Celebrity Stuffing Recipe Showdown
You can see the other celebrity Stuffing recipes here:
Ina Garten’s Sausage and Herb Stuffing
Marilyn Monroe’s Thanksgiving Stuffing
Emeril Lagasse’s Simple But Fabulous Stuffing
Gwenyth Paltrow’s Classic Bread Stuffing
Ingredients
- 15 cups bread, cubed in 1/2-inch pieces (usually challah, whole-grain, or ciabatta)
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon butter, cubed
- 1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 very large onion, very finely diced (about 2 1/2 cups)
- 2 stalks celery, very finely diced (roughly 1/2 cup)
- 2 1/2 teaspoons fennel seeds
- 3/4 teaspoon celery seeds
- 2 generous tablespoons fresh rosemary, finely chopped
- 2 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 1/2 tablespoons fresh parsley, roughly chopped
- 2 1/2 cups high-quality vegetable stock, divided
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 300°F.
- Spread cubed bread out on 2 baking sheets and bake until dried out but not browned, about 10 minutes.
- While bread bakes, heat 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add onion, celery, fennel and celery seeds, rosemary, salt, and pepper and sweat mixture for 20 minutes, keeping heat low enough that the vegetables soften but don’t take on any color. Remove from heat, add parsley, and let mixture rest and cool for about 10 minutes.
- Add bread cubes and 2 cups stock and stir to thoroughly combine. Let mixture rest for an hour to let flavors meld.
- Increase oven temperature to 350°F.
- Transfer stuffing to a baking dish, then pour remaining stock over the top and dot with butter. Bake until top is lightly browned, about 25 minutes.
Recipe from Goop.