Hoagie Stuffing turns your sandwich into a Thanksgiving feast
Love hoagies? You're going to love our Thanksgiving-fied version, hoagie stuffing.
Hoagies and stuffing don’t usually have a lot in common, except that both require bread. But honestly, why don’t they? This dish takes all the best parts of a great hoagie — salty, umami deli meats, spicy banana peppers and long hots, savory oregano onions, sharp provolone — and turns it into a side dish that’ll steal the spotlight from the turkey. It’s great for Thanksgiving, but it would be just as welcome at a Super Bowl party.
You can download the recipe here or scroll down.
Ingredients
¼ pound each genoa salami, capicola, soppressata (sweet or hot), and pepper ham, or sliced deli meats of your choice, roughly chopped
1 tbsp oregano
2 medium or 3 small onions, thinly sliced
1 cup chopped celery (about 4 stalks)
3 hoagie rolls, preferably at least a day old, torn into roughly 1-inch pieces (I used Sarcone’s)
4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
½ pound sharp provolone, cut into roughly ½ inch cubes
½ cup pickled banana pepper rings, drained
¼ cup jarred fried long hots, like Mancini’s or Cento’s
4 eggs, whisked together
Sesame seeds (optional)
Directions
Put the meat into a large, cold skillet, and heat the skillet at medium. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat has crisped up and rendered some of its fat, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Remove the meat from the pan, but keep the rendered fat. Add the celery, onions, and oregano — if the pan looks dry, add a tablespoon or two of olive oil. (If you choose deli meats that aren’t pork-based, this won’t render as much fat — that’s OK, just add more oil to the pan to cook the onions.)
Cook the celery and onions over medium until they’re soft and translucent. Normally this is a place where you’d add salt, but in this case, hold off — the meats are salty enough.
Add a quarter cup of stock to the pan and scrape up any browned bits.
Add the celery, hoagie rolls, provolone, banana peppers, and meat to a casserole dish, using tongs to mix the ingredients together and make sure they’re roughly evenly distributed.
Pour the stock and eggs over the mixture, giving the whole thing another toss with tongs to make sure that all the bread gets some of the liquid. If it seems dry, add up to a cup more stock.
Cover with foil. Bake at 350ºF for 30 minutes.
Remove the foil and bake for another 15 minutes, until the bread on top is golden brown. Sprinkle with sesame seeds (if using) and serve.
— Recipe by Margaret Eby, Deputy food editor at the Inquirer
White Castle, famously, has a stuffing recipe that uses its sliders as a main ingredient. Why not do the same thing with a hoagie? This version of hoagie stuffing requires little more than a leftover hoagie, a bag of chips (Herr’s, please), stock, eggs, and milk. The ending texture is closer to a breakfast strata than a sandwich, and it’ll transform your leftovers into a side dish worthy of bringing to any Thanksgiving gathering. You can download the recipe here.
Ingredients
1 large or 2 small Italian hoagies, no lettuce or tomato
1 small bag Herr’s Crisp ‘N Tasty
½ cup chicken stock
1 egg
½ cup milk
Directions
Preheat oven to 350ºF degrees.
Tear or slice the hoagie into bite-size pieces and arrange in a medium cast-iron skillet.
Crack the egg into a bowl and whisk until the white and yolk are relatively homogenous. Add the milk and stock, and stir together.
Pour the egg-milk-stock mixture over the hoagies, mix to coat the hoagie pieces with the liquid. Top with crushed Herr’s chips.
Bake, uncovered, until the bread on top is golden and the liquid is absorbed, about 35 to 40 minutes.
— Recipe by Margaret Eby, Deputy Food Editor at the Inquirer