The Best Vegan Cornbread Stuffing Recipe

🌽 Ingredients for making vegan stuffing

Cornbread

I wrote the cornbread measurement for this recipe in cut cubed cornbread so that you could use any recipe, or even store-bought cornbread your little heart desires. But I would be a total jerk who smells bad if I didn’t turn you on to my excellent vegan cornbread recipe to make this with. It’s what my family loves, so perhaps yours will too!

Cranberries

If fresh or frozen cranberries aren’t available, you can substitute them with dried cranberries—just reduce the sugar slightly to account for the fact that pretty much all dried cranberries have some sweetener on them.

Brown Sugar

To achieve the perfect flavor, I knew part of the sweetness needed to come from brown sugar. Regular light brown sugar works just fine, but since my wife avoids cane sugar, I always keep coconut sugar and palm sugar around, and both are excellent in this recipe.

If you grab a bag of coconut or palm sugar and are left wondering what to do with the rest, they’re fantastic in Southeast Asian desserts. Palm sugar is key for making klepon and bubur sumsum, while coconut sugar is ideal for creating the coconut filling in kuih dadar.

Fennel Seeds (Optional)

Fennel seeds add a very subtly sweet, licorice-like flavor that makes this stuffing feel a wee bit fancier. They can 200% be omitted if you’re not a fan of their taste or replaced with anise seeds (those tiny little suckers you might use to make Peruvian picarones).

Unsalted Vegetable Stock

Store-bought vegetable broth can vary in saltiness, so to keep things consistent, use either homemade or unsalted stock. My closest grocery store only has low sodium, though, so I always make my own.

To make it at home, boil onions, carrots, celery, garlic, a couple of bay leaves, and some peppercorns until the veggies are wilted. Strain out the solids for a versatile stock that’s great in this recipe and for roasted carrot lentil soup with chestnuts—perfect as a Thanksgiving appetizer.

If you're stuck with low sodium or salted vegetable stock, or want to use vegan chicken broth, just adjust the tamari to taste. For a quick vegan chicken stock, mix Better Than Bouillon No-Chicken base with hot water, but remember to reduce the tamari a bit since it’s already salty.

📖 How to make vegan cornbread stuffing

Nail this traditional stuffing recipe on your first shot by following these step-by-step photos with helpful tips. Or scroll down to the bottom of this page for the easy-to-print recipe card.

Step One

2 Live Croutons:

Preheat the oven to 250°F (120°C). Spread the cornbread cubes on a parchment paper-lined baking tray and let them dry out for 35-40 minutes in the oven until they feel stale. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile, crank the oven temperature up to 350°F (175°C).

Step Two

Spa Time for Leeks:

Rinse the leeks thoroughly, then slice and submerge them in warm water, massaging to remove dirt, and rinse again under cold running water.

Step Three

Cranma and Cranpa’s House:

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the cranberries, orange juice, brown sugar, and rosemary. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10-12 minutes until the cranberries soften and the mixture thickens slightly. Remove from heat and set aside.

Step Four

Sauté-braham Lincoln:

In a large frying pan over medium heat, melt the vegan butter. After 2 minutes, when the vegan butter is fully melted and hot, add the onion and leeks, and sauté for 6-7 minutes until they start to soften and turn lightly golden.

Step Five

Pecan Blinders:

Add the minced garlic, pecans, fennel seeds (if using), dried or fresh thyme, sage, coriander, black pepper, and salt to the pan. Continue to sauté for 3 minutes over medium heat until the garlic is fragrant and the pecans are lightly toasted. Remove from heat.

Step Six

Children of the Cornbread:

In a large casserole dish, gently mix together the dried cornbread cubes with the sautéed vegetables and pecans.

Pour 2 cups of vegetable stock evenly over the mixture, making sure all the cornbread cubes are moistened by the vegan cornbread dressing, but be gentle so that they don’t start to crumble too much.

Step Seven

Cran-burial:

Gently fold the cooked cranberries into the stuffing using a mixing spoon. If you like, garnish with additional pecan pieces and rosemary sprigs.

Step Eight

Foil Metal Jacket:

Cover the stuffing dish with foil and roast in the oven for 15 minutes at 350°F (175°C). Remove the foil and continue roasting for an additional 15 minutes until the top is lightly golden brown. Remove the casserole dish from the oven and get ready to serve up some serious stuffing magic!

🥧 Vegan Holiday Menu Suggestions

Ok, I am gonna give you vegan Thanksgiving suggestions here rather than Christmas, because uh… Let’s just say my family eats bagels on that holiday and goes out for Chinese food for Christmas dinner, if you catch my drift?

This stuffing is downright fantastic to put onto your holiday table with roasted seitan chicken. Usually, I’ll rock my roasted carrot lentil soup or a butternut squash soup beforehand.

A couple of unconventional side dishes that I think are wonderful on a Thanksgiving table are zeytinyağlı taze fasulye (it's a simple, delicious Turkish vegan green bean dish that makes a welcome replacement to classic vegan green bean casserole) and this Filipino kalabasa recipe (it’s kabocha squash and spinach in a mild coconut milk broth).

Then classics like candied yams, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, dairy-free mashed potatoes, dripping with either brown vegan gravy, or vegan sausage gravy and the like are obviously gonna be part of your holiday spread, right?

Polish it all off with a slice of vegan apple pie, vegan pumpkin muffins that are dripping with cardamom glaze, vegan sweet potato muffins, or vegan pumpkin flan.