Made with sweet cornbread, smoky bacon, butternut squash and fresh sage, this sweet-and-salty stuffing recipe from Twin Cities food blogger greens & chocolate is the perfect addition to your Thanksgiving meal.

When it comes to Thanksgiving side dishes, I could make an entire meal out of stuffing. Sure, I love mashed potatoes, rolls and sweet potato casserole. But I could eat stuffing for breakfast, lunch and dinner, any month of the year.

I mean, it basically has all the components of a meal: carbs, some sort of veggie (sometimes) and a protein (again, sometimes). Regardless, the stuffing will definitely cover us on the carbs.

I actually don’t remember loving stuffing at Thanksgiving when I was growing up. I’m guessing we had a pretty basic recipe that didn’t stand out to me. Plus, my grandma made some stellar Czech dumplings and gravy that I always loaded my plate with. Who needs stuffing when you have Grandma’s dumplings?

However, I remember one particular Thanksgiving that we spent in Kansas City, when my mom and aunt decided to try a Food Network recipe that had apples and sausage in the stuffing. It was around the time when people started to become more adventurous with their cooking, so I remember this being kind of a big deal. It was the best stuffing I had ever had, and I’m pretty sure my Thanksgivings have never been the same since.

Every year, I try to think of new, fun stuffing recipe ideas, and I am in love with what I’ve come up with this year: Butternut Squash and Bacon Cornbread Stuffing. It reminds me of a stuffing that you’d find in the south, with a sweet cornbread base and smoky bacon throughout, along with a generous amount of butternut squash. This stuffing is salty and sweet!

In my (stuffing) book, you can’t make stuffing without fresh sage. It gives it that recognizable stuffing flavor, regardless of the other ingredients you have in it.

One note about this recipe: you’ll notice there aren’t any eggs in it. The cornbread stuffing is simply moistened by a cup of chicken broth, which keeps the texture of this stuffing super light, which I loved.

If you’re a huge stuffing fan like me and like to experiment every year with a new recipe, give this one a try for this year’s Thanksgiving/Friendsgiving/Sunday afternoon when ya just need some stuffing!