My family used to make two types of stuffing:
- Cornbread stuffing with onions and bell peppers (my grandma’s recipe)
- Regular stuffing with lots of celery, mushrooms, and sausage
Much to my regret, Giuseppe never got to meet my grandmother or taste her amazing food. I miss her and her cooking every day. I also miss the delicious sourdough I use to consume regularly in the Bay Area.
I think my grandma has been keeping an eye out to make sure I find comfort in the food from my childhood because we recently found an incredible bakery in Crotone that makes some of the best sourdough bread we’ve ever had. We decided it’s definitely stuffing material.
This recipe features salsiccia Calabrese, bell peppers, and onions! A lovely reader pointed out it might be a lil tough to find traditional salsiccia in some parts of the US. Not to worry, we’ve got a workaround...
Calabrian Salsiccia (Fresh) + Recipe Notes
And Italian stuffing is quite popular in the U.S…
But this recipe uses salsiccia calabrese which is different. I asked our favorite Calabrian butcher how they make it and here’s what he said…
- pork
- lard
- salt
- pepe rosso (sweet or spicy)
- fennel seeds
For spicy sausage, hot chili powder and cream of sweet chili pepper are added. For sweet sausage, sweet chili powder or cream of sweet chili pepper is used.
The butchershop sells it in the casing. For this recipe, we remove it from the casing.
How can you find it in the U.S.?
Your butcher might have it. Ask for calabrian sausage or salsiccia calabrese. Otherwise…
- Buy regular Italian sausage and additional spices, see below.
- Buy ground pork and add your own spices, see below.
What spices to add?
- Add 1 1/2 tsp fennel seeds (skip if Italian sausage already has lots of fennel)
- 2 tsp finely ground Italian/Calabrian sweet pepper or paprika (the sausage should be quite red so add another 1 tsp if needed)
A Spicey Gift From Burlap & Barrel
While researching spices we connected with the folks at Burlap & Barrel who were kind enough to help with suggestions and send over a lil something for our readers...
Their Noble Sweet Paprika from Hungary is classic, mild, very earthy, and bell pepper-y. Its sister paprika is the Szegedi 178 Hot Paprika, grown by the same farmer, and has notes of hay field, dried plum, and glowing coalsbut, this one is very fiery. Lastly, there’s the Silk Chili which splits the difference, a medium spicy, sweet, tomato-y Aleppo-style chili flake grown just across the Turkish border from Aleppo.
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