Smoky Bacon-Biscuit Dressing

Thanksgiving is next week. What?! Thanks to our kitchen renovation, we are not at all prepared for a food-centric holiday. The good news, though, is that our kitchen is nearing completion. About freaking time, right? The cabinets look so good, and I can’t wait to show all of you our new kitchen. Until then, here’s something that will come in handy next week – an awesome Thanksgiving recipe.

I’ve had my share of dressing/stuffing (side note: Do you know people that still call it stuffing even though it wasn’t stuffed into a turkey? That’s always been odd to me, but I find myself doing it sometimes, too. Dressing makes me think of salads. Can we give this a new name? Haha.) in my 28 years of life, and I can honestly say that most of them haven’t been that memorable. Eric and I made a pretty fantastic chorizo and brioche version for our first Thanksgiving in Virginia, but that’s the only one that really sticks out as a dish I’d eat again. I find most dressings to be, well, lacking – too mushy, too uniform in texture, you get the point. I’ve had typical bread cube dressings and cornbread dressings, but what I’ve never had before is a dressing made with biscuits. Oh yes, you heard that right. Biscuits AND bacon. You’re welcome.

Why it never occurred to me to make dressing with biscuits, I don’t know, but I do know this is the only way I’ll make it for the foreseeable future. Homemade biscuits are combined with a full pound of bacon, some aromatics, mushrooms, celery, onions and chicken broth to form what is easily going to be the Thanksgiving showstopper. What was once a boring, flavorless, afterthought is now going to be the center of my Thanksgiving table for many years to come. The biscuits have the perfect texture for dressing. They absorb just enough broth without becoming soggy. The big pieces of biscuits and the crispy bacon give this dressing layers of texture. This is just an all around fabulous recipe, and I’m thinking it might be making an appearance at Christmas, too.