Fried Salami Is The Best Ingredient To Dress Up Boxed Stuffing

For people who don't cook Thanksgiving dinner, it just seems like a nice meal. For family members tasked with cooking for a crowd, it's a marathon cooking experience. In many cases, it's the most important meal of the year, and it isn't a quick process. According to The Morning News, a 10 to 18-pound turkey takes between three to five hours to cook, depending on whether it is stuffed on unstuffed. While the turkey is cooking away, side dishes are also typically made. Getting Thanksgiving dinner from the planned concept to the table can take several days.

Home chefs don't need to fret, though. There are ways to reduce the stress associated with getting the Thanksgiving feast together. Store-bought ingredients can reduce the time required to prep and alleviate much of the stress. The Kitchn argues that cornbread mix and boxed stuffing are Thanksgiving essentials — and several chefs agree. Still, you shouldn't just follow the instructions on the stuffing box and call it good. Salami is a secret ingredient that can take your stuffing from mundane to marvelous, according to one acclaimed cookbook author.

Not everything at Thanksgiving dinner needs to be homemade. It's totally okay to utilize store-bought ingredients as long as you jazz them up a bit. Chris Morocco, the Bon Appétit test kitchen director, spoke with Good Morning America and gave pre-packaged ingredients his seal of approval. He told the publication that "meaningful shortcuts" are often necessary to get a big meal off the ground. If that means using store-bought stuffing mix, so be it.

Illyanna Maisonet, a cookbook author, shared her Thanksgiving hack with Bon Appétit readers in October 2020. Maisonet insists that store-bought stuffing mix is perfectly fine to use, and her preference is cornbread stuffing. The author's recipe calls for one ingredient to brighten up the experience: Maisonet says frying up 1/2-inch pieces of salami and adding them to the stuffing mix elevates the traditional Thanksgiving dish. The added nutty flavor balances the sweetness of the cornbread to create a flavor explosion.

Morocco and Maisonet aren't the only chefs that have given store-bought ingredients a thumbs up. Ina Garten speaks highly of certain store-bought components, too. The famed celebrity chef told Today that she thinks everyone should skip making puff pastry from scratch and just buy it from the store, and she felt similarly about peanut butter and vanilla extract as well. While Garten didn't mention anything about store-bought stuffing mix, she'd probably be fine with it. Garten draws the line at broth, though, as she prefers to make her own.