After you’ve cubed your bread, the next stage is to dry it
out. It may surprise you, but drying and staling are not the
same thing (see “Drying Versus Staling,” here). Though
many recipes call for stale bread, what they’re actually
looking for is dry bread. Staling takes time. Luckily for us,
drying is fast. I dry my bread by toasting it in a low (275°F)
oven for about 45 minutes, tossing it a couple of times
halfway through. By drying the bread like this, you make
enough room in the cubes from two regular-sized loaves
(about 2½ pounds) to absorb a full 4 cups of chicken or
turkey broth. It’s so much broth that the stuffing will almost
taste as if you baked it in the bird if you do it in a separate
pan (for instructions on how to safely bake the stuffing in
the bird, see here). I recommend starting it with foil on top
to trap in some moisture, before removing the foil and
crisping up the top.
The flavorings I go with are classic: butter (and plenty of
it), sage sausage (you can get away with just sage for a
nonmeaty version), onions, celery, and garlic. My sister
likes to add dried cranberries and my mother likes to add
chestnuts. They are, of course, both wrong.