Thanksgiving is a time for us to come together and give thanks the best way we know how — with family and food. Alongside the traditional turkey, ham, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes that grace most Thanksgiving suppers, many families have their own special touches they like to add to the table.  

Earlier this month, we reached out to fellow SCDNR employees to find one of these unique dishes and share it with our readers. We received many wonderful recipes to choose from, but ultimately it seemed fitting to feature a coastal take on a Thanksgiving staple: oyster dressing, also called stuffing in many parts of the country. SCDNR staffer Nick Wallover shared his wife’s family recipe, derived from an old country cookbook, which simply called for bread crumbs or crushed crackers, a Paula Dean amount of butter, and lots of oysters.

We added a few extra flavors into the mix for a bonafide Lowcountry dressing, opting for cornbread as opposed to bread crumbs. We also wanted to use celery, onion and herbs, a go-to mixture for many stuffing recipes that contrasts well with the softer texture of the oysters. Some recipes call for sausage, but we wanted the oysters to be the star of the dish and therefore left the sausage out. Instead, we threw in some hot sauce and lemon juice in homage to slurpin’ oysters off the half shell or at a local roast. 

The first, and perhaps most important, step to this recipe is to obtain fresh, high-quality oysters. If you want to harvest oysters yourself, be sure you have a saltwater fishing license and are harvesting at an open public oyster bed. A map of recreational and state sites (both fair game for the public) can be found here. However, if you’re in a pinch for time, most coastal seafood markets sell bags of clusters or even pre-shucked oysters.  

If you harvest or shuck the oysters yourself, be sure to recycle your shells! The health of South Carolina’s oysters depends on your recycled shells, which our biologists use to rebuild oyster reefs along the coastline. Find a recycling drop-off location near you.

Regardless of where you get your oysters, be sure to save some of the briney liquid from them to be used later. Once you’ve obtained and shucked your oysters, the next step is preparing the cornbread. We used two boxes of 50-cent cornbread mix — nothing fancy; however, if your family has a great homemade recipe, feel free to make it from scratch! The beauty of this recipe is that you decide what level of time and effort you want to put into it.

Oyster Dressing          

Ingredients:                           

• 2 boxes of cornbread fully prepared (note: most box mixes require milk and one egg each)

• ½ stick of butter 

• ½ cup chopped yellow onion 

• 1 cup chopped celery 

• ¼ cup of fresh parsley finely chopped 

• 1 cup of shucked oysters (reserve liquid) 

• ½ cup broth of your choice

• 2 eggs (slightly beaten) 

• 1 tbsp dried thyme

• 1 tbsp dried sage 

• Dash of salt 

• Dash of pepper 

• Hot sauce to taste 

• Juice of half a lemon

Crumble prepared cornbread into a large mixing bowl and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Next, melt some butter in a sauce pan and cook the chopped celery, onion, and parsley over medium heat until soft and slightly transparent.

While the veggies sauté, roughly chop the oysters and combine them in a bowl with the broth and eggs. Mix together and then add in the thyme, sage, hot sauce, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Once the celery, onions, and parsley are cooked through, add those into the mixture as well. Once all the ingredients are mixed together, slowly start pouring it into the bowl of cornbread, stirring to ensure it is evenly distributed.  

As needed, pour the oyster liquid in while stirring. You don’t want the mixture to be too dry or too wet, so this will require use of judgement. The cornbread will soak up most of the liquid, but don’t let the mixture become soupy. Evenly spread the cornbread mixture in a greased baking pan (ours measured 12×8”). Lastly, top the stuffing with a few small slices of butter to encourage browning. Pop in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes. Once it is nice and crusted on the outside, but still moist in the middle, take your dressing out and let it cool. We transferred ours to a cute serving dish for the table.

Fancy serving dish or not, your relatives will be mighty impressed with this oyster cornbread dressing/stuffing. It’s the perfect way to add a little Lowcountry love to your Thanksgiving day feast.