Pro Chefs Blind Taste Test Every Boxed Stuffing

[Announcer] We've gathered three professional chefs

to blind taste test every boxed stuffing mix

we could get our hands on

to see which ones meet their standards.

[bright music]

All of the boxed stuffings have been prepared following

the cooking instructions on their packaging.

Natural variance may occur.

Stove Top stuffing mix for turkey.

So if this was smell of vision, wow, I'm getting a lot

of good fresh herbs in here,

or they, they smell fresh.

Probably not because they're from a box.

Looks like rice, like the bread guy,

a little too dry and broke apart.

And the packaging process.

Kind of wet and a little bit clumpy.

My ideal box stuffing is one

that doesn't taste like it's from a box.

I'm looking for a crispy outer texture

with a nice creamy, soft inner texture.

Moist but not soggy.

So the size of the bread is really important.

Something too small, too bitsy is gonna have a tendency

to get soggy, be wet, and be a little bit flaggy.

It's all about the seasoning for me.

You need an adequate amount of salt.

Sage very well with most poultries.

Any combination of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

I'm definitely looking for vegetables.

I feel like it adds a depth of flavor.

Richness and meatiness to it.

Ultimately something that takes me back to warm,

wonderful memories of home.

Let's dig in.

You smell the herbs

but when you taste it, they don't really come through.

I'm not really getting a great depth at all.

Salt and bread pretty much is what you're tasting.

This is lacking in a little bit of fat for me.

It's lacking in the kind

of vegetable-based aromatics that I'm looking for.

It could very well be that 'cause they're using

dried herbs. It definitely loses some of the impact

that a fresh herb will give you in your dish

and because you could smell it from a mile away

but you just don't get the taste.

When I went to pick it up, it fell off my fork.

So moist but not moist enough for me.

Very grainy.

It has a lot of moisture content to it

that is gonna resist incorporating other liquids

that carry potentially more flavor like a broth.

It's so important that the bread is dried out in advance.

I'll slice my bread

and then I'll leave it on a rack for about an hour

and then I will bake it

and the oven will help to continue the dehydration process.

While some people may think

that using stale bread is okay, I'm here

to tell you it's absolutely not.

It's when bread gets stale in ambient air,

it gets very tough and I think flavor is actually impacted.

Stale bread is gonna give you stale stuffing.

I'm gonna guess.

Stove Top stuffing.

Stove Top Turkey flavor.

Oh, turkey.

I didn't really taste the turkey.

I did taste the Stove Top though.

They're incorporating a lot of different ingredients

that should be bringing a almost kind

of like a natural MSG quality, like hydrolyzed soy protein.

This is more like a science project than it does

an actual ingredient list.

I mean it, says made with real Turkey broth.

What does that mean exactly?

I imagine it's, you know, kind

of like a Turkey bullion product.

So I did eat this growing up.

I remember the commercials as a kid.

But my mother was great at jujuing things up.

[Announcer] Stove Top chicken stuffing mix.

Okay.

Real talk, it looks like hell.

The pieces are a lot smaller.

It looks almost like mashed.

It's like a big clump

But it actually smells pretty good.

There's a clean, straightforward, meaty quality to this.

This was a lot better than the last.

The herbs in this one actually you could taste some more.

I'm definitely getting some parsley in there.

A time and sage quality to this, that dried herb.

There's vegetables in it.

They're definitely dehydrated

because they still have a crunch to it,

but they're there, so it does give it

a bit more depth of flavor.

It has celery in here.

Parsley.

I got like a really nice nugget of cooked onion in here.

Just that little bit of allium

and its ability to transform this, you know, kind

of meaty blank slate into something a little bit more sharp,

a little bit more complex.

Not one of my favorites

and definitely too salty Stove Top chicken.

Stop it.

Wow!

Stove Top chicken.

You actually get the chicken flavor in this one

versus the turkey where you were not able

to tell that that it was turkey.

For a Stove Top only stuffing,

honestly, I think the flavor's pretty good.

[Announcer] Olivia's traditional stuffing.

Well, this definitely has way bigger chunks

than the last two previous injuries.

I'm worried about whether or not the moisture

and the flavor was able to penetrate

because of the size of the bread.

You can actually see the vegetables in this,

big chunks of celery.

This big chunks of onion.

This smells 85% of the weight to a homemade stuffing.

Okay, I may have spoken too soon.

No flavor.

I'm getting dry pieces of bread here.

There's definitely no herbs in this.

It needs all of those aromatics to really give it flavor.

It's just a little bit blank.

This is a case of size gone wrong.

These big pieces of bread suddenly are a liability

because they don't actually have great flavor.

You would get parts of it that's super soggy

and then parts of it that's not

because certain parts of it is soaking up

more of your liquid.

Okay.

Olivia stuffing.

Sorry, Olivia.

I feel like I was a bit mean.

You could pronounce everything that's on here.

It actually looks and reads like a ingredient list for food.

I actually respect them for that.

[participant laughs]

Olivia's using multi green bread.

Those are breads that are traditionally very dense,

so what you would have to do is add more moisture to it,

which would give it more flavor.

Stuffing recipe.

So yeah, coarsely chopped onion, coarsely chopped celery,

a stick of butter

and then chicken broth, salt and pepper to taste.

The only thing they're actually supplying

is the bag of bread.

You're pretty much better off going ahead

and making your own stuffing.

[Announcer] Great Value, turkey flavored stuffing mix.

The bread is small, so I'm a little hesitant

but I love the coloring on it

and I can definitely see the herbs in here.

It's like rosemary day over at the stuffing factory, huh?

This is giving me maybe low budget,

and it's okay to be low budget,

but this oohs too much separation guys and no moisture.

It's rice-y.

It has a nice flavor to be honest with you.

It is not that bad.

There's some rosemary, some parsley.

The seasoning is balanced very, very well.

It's just something about box stuffing where they all have

that artificial taste.

It's just a little bit watery.

That quality of meatiness that we're looking for here

feels kind of absent.

[Participant] Oops, $0.97.

Stop it.

Oh my Gosh.

It definitely tastes every bit of $0.97.

Perhaps what you may wanna do is substitute water

for stock just to give it a little more flavor.

[Announcer] Great Value, Chicken flavored stuffing mix.

This one is extremely crumbly.

Looks like somebody made breadcrumb stuffing.

[participant laughs]

It is rife with dried herbs.

Has that, you know kind

of concentrated, onion-y kind of sharpness.

This is not bad.

Perhaps the croutons, the box didn't get shaken up

as much as the other one did, but I'm looking

at a better value here

and a better deal, and don't tell me this is great value.

I have a feeling 95%

of people want something quite a bit like this.

This has umami.

This fills your mouth.

This was so much better than the last one.

That's crazy And it's the same thing.

There's almost like a caramel-y quality to this.

This is the worst one so far.

It's [beeps] great value, right?

Aha.

This is great value chicken.

This is another dollar brand for sure.

$0.97

I gotta say hats off to these folks

Here we have chicken broth, chicken fats

and cooked chicken.

That could be why this one tastes better than me.

A lot more preservatives though for some strange reason.

[Announcer] Pepperidge Farm

Herb Seasoned Classic Stuffing.

Wow, okay.

I don't know how to feel about this.

It doesn't look like stuffing.

This is definitely some kinda wheat flour.

This has a like a rancid farty grape nut quality.

The smell coming out of like a subway sandwich shop,

you know like just billowy hot yeasty air.

This tastes like stale bread.

It's not that bad.

There's an interesting quality of richness here.

Depth of flavor is really immersing.

I definitely am getting a buttery kind of mouth filling.

I see the celery nicely hydrated, so look at that.

It's beautiful, actually beautiful for a box.

It just doesn't taste like a great quality bread.

There's a part of it that's just extremely chewy.

Surprisingly this one is doing it for me.

Pepperidge Farms?

Oh, come on now.

I never met a Pepperidge Farm I didn't like.

Classic stuffing, white

and wheat breads blended with herbs and spices.

Even in here you could feel that there's certain pieces

that's soft and certain pieces that's hard.

Oh molasses.

Oh that's definitely adding

to the coloring.

Molasses is gonna give it a natural sweet flavor,

but not as sweet as sugar.

Chef's Cupboard, chicken flavored stuffing mix.

So this definitely has a lighter color to it, which means

that this is definitely dehydrated.

Not a toasted bread.

Very bland.

I'm also not tasting

or seeing a lot of herbs or seasoning in here.

There's like a sweetness to it,

which is borderline offensive,

but then it's almost like lacking salt.

It's kind of losing itself within the garlic

and onion powder of the dish.

It just tastes like very soft wonder bread

that you've kneaded together to like go fishing off the dock

and now you're chewing it.

I don't like the fact that in this one you have some

that are very, very moist, like this piece,

and then you have some pieces that are really,

really tough to break through.

One of the things that I do when I'm making stuffing

is I marry the ingredients

and then I let it rest together for about 20 minutes

before I'm putting in the in the oven

is, it's giving the bread an opportunity

to really soak in all of that moisture.

Chef's Cupboard stuffing mix,

chicken flavor butter and water.

It was mediocre across the board.

Guess what?

There's no freaking chicken in here.

All stuff that I can't pronounce.

Palm oil or vegetable shortening, sugar.

Vegetable protein,

which is like hydrolyzed corn protein was a sort

of like an MSG kind of precursor.

There's no chicken in the Chef's Cupboard Chicken Flavor.

[Announcer] Stove Top cornbread stuffing mix.

Kind of a slice of scrambled eggs.

We're looking a little on the yellow side, so I'm hoping

that it has maybe some cornbread in it.

I'm not a big fan of the cornbread stuffing

because it's very grainy.

A little bit crumbly, but look st staying on the fork.

It smells really good.

Ooh, salty.

This is like so overly concentrated.

I think it's overly seasoned.

It's, there's too much salt.

It's hit every flavor receptor so hard, you know,

but like it's kind of used them as a punching bag.

If I had to be honest,

I would say this

is probably the best tasting stuffing so far.

I'm getting the grittiness of the cornbread, which I love.

Has great herbs.

I'm tasting the rosemary, I'm tasting thyme.

Good depth of flavor.

I get onion, I get garlic.

The texture on this cornbread is actually pretty nice.

Hmm, nice, moist.

If I'm eating it stuffing, this is pretty close

to how I would want it to taste.

[Participant laughs]

That's Stove Top.

Oh my god.

Stove Top cornbread.

No, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no.

It definitely has cooked chicken in it.

A little less salt and then we have a winner.

[Announcer] Great Value cornbread stuffing mix.

Oh this is a normal color.

Lot less yellow.

A nice size.

I'm getting some moisture.

Wow, you said this was boxed.

This is pretty just overall pleasant.

This is actually pretty good.

Very nice depth of flavor here.

I'm getting the dehydrated onions in here

as well as the parsley.

I think I'm getting sage in here.

I'm definitely getting chicken stock.

I'm definitely getting butter.

There's definitely a little love.

I'm trying to see,

is this a little cornbread in here?

It's like wheat bread

with just a suspicion of corn.

It's actually a very flavorful stuffing.

Ooh!

Ah!

O-M-G-G-G-V

GV.

Great Value cornbread.

You brought me back to life, GV.

These are hitting.

This has chicken fat, chicken broth

and cooked chicken, which is one of the reasons

why it is so flavor-forward.

I think that they could have this be

like a couple clicks, more corny.

It's just not cornbread.

[Announcer] Olivia's cornbread stuffing.

Nice sized chunk on the bread.

This is another one of those stuffing mixes that seems

to be trying to make a statement with whole wheat.

I wouldn't say this is what my stuffing looks like,

but this is what stuffing looks like

when I go to other people's houses.

[Participant Laughs]

It's very mild flavored.

You could tell that they're seasoning in there,

but it's just not enough.

One of which could just be old spices,

you know like old black pepper.

The bread itself is on some parts and hard on the other.

And this is what happens when the croutons are too big

and they're not able to soak up the flavor.

I want you to watch as I break this apart.

No moisture in here.

Right, that's me hitting the bread.

[participant chuckles]

This is Olivia's stuffing.

So this is another of Olivia's.

If they call this corn, I'm upset.

Are they calling this cornbread?

No, no, no, no, no.

This is Olivia's cornbread dressing.

If you stuff it inside of a chicken

or a turkey, you have stuffing,

and if you cook it in a pan, then it's dressing.

Dressing is pretty much a southern term

because we feel that it's dressing the bird.

However, it's the same thing.

It's like potato, potato.

I am not getting cornbread with this at all.

And they're using so many different flour in this.

Unbleached white wheat flour, wheat, malted barley flour,

then cornmeal, then whole wheat flour.

We'll add other flour that will have more

of a gluten structure

to keep the bread more structurally sound

during a production.

So this box is actually pretty expensive.

It's a $9 box of stuffing.

When we compared it to the previous stuffing

that was only $1,

the Great Value cornbread had a lot more flavor,

the structure was a lot better.

Olivia, call me, call me.

[Announcer] Trader Joe's cornbread stuffing mix.

Looks like it was dehydrated bread versus toasted bread.

Very pale in color.

There's definitely no crispiness to it whatsoever.

It all looks very soggy.

The aroma is very, very forward.

Kind of an herbaceous chicken broth kind of vibe to it.

Oh, it was so soggy.

I think that's due to it just solely being dehydrated.

That of course is a big turnoff.

You can tell just by looking at the color of the bread

and the texture that it wasn't baked long enough.

I think my preference would probably still always be

for a stuffing to be baked,

not just prepared, you know, using a Stove Top method.

They probably didn't let it dry out

because as soon as that moisture hit it,

the bread broke down

and what happens is it totally dissolves.

It can't hold taste and there's no balance

because there's only mush.

There is a savory umami quality to this.

Just enough richness.

There's a really nice black pepper quality here

and there is like a very nice kind of parsley

and verdant, you know, kind of sensation

of just like just herbs everywhere.

I don't think it's the best looking necessarily,

but I think flavor-wise this is up there.

Trader Joe's.

Trader Joe's.

So this is a mix of corn bread and white bread.

It's not cornbread, guys.

It's not.

It doesn't have the sweetness of cornbread.

It doesn't have the texture of cornbread.

Powdered chicken fat.

So you're not getting any chicken in here.

Any real chicken.

Oh, I'm so disappointed.

[Announcer] Pepperidge Farm cornbread classic stuffing.

I feel like I'm seeing actual distinct bits of cornmeal,

like large pieces

of cornmeal in this.

Unfortunately like it just has

like a little bit of that slightly sour quality

of like a speed risen whole wheat bread.

I've certainly gotten this quality from the Olivia's,

and anytime there was whole wheat bread in the mix,

I feel like I've had that sensation.

Do y'all hear that?

Not what I want in my stuffing.

It feels like a drumbeat.

[upbeat music]

There's definitely vegetables in here.

You got your onions and your celery, which makes me happy.

This is like pretty much the only stuffing

where I can definitively say I taste corn.

So I guess that's something.

The parts that do have seasoning,

the seasoning is pretty good.

You definitely get your chicken stock,

you could definitely taste the butter in it,

but as far as the herbs

and the salt goes, I feel like it's kind of lacking.

Not enough liquid.

Somebody didn't get any love.

The texture just is a bit of a disaster.

Looks like it was pulled apart unevenly,

or if it's in a bag,

it could have been handled really roughly.

I'm thinking that this is Pepperidge Farm

in a bag corn bread stuffing.

Da, da, da!

Ah, Pepperidge Farms.

It does not say chicken.

It says classic stuffing.

So no protein in here.

It's just lackluster.

Williams Sonoma Organic cornbread stuffing mix.

It definitely looks like it was toasted,

which always makes me happy.

Not nearly as bad as what we've been seeing.

There's definitely vegetables, there's definitely herbs.

It smells great.

It's actually not that bad.

This is interesting.

There's great depth of flavor.

I'm getting butter, I'm getting salt, garlic, onion powder.

I'm definitely tasting rosemary in there.

It's balanced.

Definitely not too salty.

I'm getting the celery, I'm getting the onions.

I'm getting some parsley in here.

I'm not mad at the stuffing at all.

It's one of the more successful examples

of balancing it out.

I do not like the size of the cubes.

They're a little too big for me.

I'm enjoying the flavor.

It's just I gotta get to it.

It's a job to get to the flavor in this.

So we still have a little bit of that bitter flat quality

to this bread, which feels like it's got some proportion

of whole wheat and maybe even some corn in there.

I'm tasting this and I know there's definitely cornbread

in here, and I know that because I'm getting the graininess.

However, it's not a lot.

I have to search for it.

Williams Sonoma's organic cornbread stuffing.

The ingredients list is only three lines on here,

which is amazing 'cause that tells you

that there's not a lot of preservatives

or chemicals inside the actual product itself,

which is great.

But I also don't think it's amazing.

And for $20 compared to the Great Value,

they're in different worlds.

You still have to buy your vegetables,

which is your onions and your celery,

and you also have to get chicken stock.

So you're not just spending $20 to make stuffing,

you'll be spending more like $35 to make stuffing.

So that right there alone does not make it worth it to me.

[Announcer] Williams Sonoma organic brioche stuffing mix.

It looks great.

You can tell that the bread has been toasted.

The chunks of bread are humongous.

It's not very good at all.

It's actually quite bland.

So the only thing I'm getting here is soggy bread.

I genuinely don't want

to be mean about some of these things.

I really don't.

This is so devoid of character.

The most you can say for it is, oh, like the onion

and the celery are nice and like we did that.

The liquid is not evenly distributed throughout,

so you get some pieces that's super crispy

and some pieces that's super soggy.

It's being held together just by the skin of the bread,

but the insides are already broken down.

So this tells me that they use the wrong type of bread.

It could possibly be a brioche.

Some kind of enriched bread.

Richer breads interestingly,

like you'd think they'd be better, right?

But there's a certain way

in which you can never quite force out enough water content

and have it imbibe enough, you know, kind of savory stock

and fat and other flavors.

Because it has egg in it, it tends

to get soggy quicker than normal breads would.

And it doesn't toast as hard as a normal bread would.

Williams Sonoma's organic brioche stuffing.

They really like putting organic on stuff, huh?

[Participant laughs]

I'm giving you a new name, William Noma.

William Noma stuffing.

Noma stuffing for you.

It's sea salt, garlic and rosemary extract.

It didn't put a lot in here as far as flavor goes.

$20 and you're treating me like this?

Brioche doesn't have a lot of flavor to begin with.

That's kinda why it is so popular.

It's a very malleable flavor.

You could do a lot of things to it.

So if you don't do anything to it,

you're not really gonna have any flavor.

[Announcer] Williams Sonoma organic focaccia stuffing mix.

Aromatically,

like there's something promising happening here.

You can smell the butter,

you can smell all the goodness in there.

This stuffing has a lot of herbs,

so it's already enticing me.

Richer, toastier.

Unfortunately though,

I'm definitely seeing some dried pieces in here

and some super soggy pieces.

I could taste the chicken flavor in there, but that's it.

If there are herbs in there, it is very faint.

I'm not getting any salt.

I'm getting like a touch of dried rosemary though.

There's something like a little bit more kind of Italian.

Right in the middle here,

the bread is very, very soft and gooey

and delicious and flavorful,

but then I have these other pieces

that it's just not consistent.

This is probably one of the lowest quality stuffings

that we've had so far.

What's really dangerous are the darn croutons

'cause it's gonna break a tooth.

Look.

So if you use a bread that has more air pockets in it,

I would say that that's gonna soak up your liquid faster

than a more dense style bread, which is causing it

to be mush and whatever was at the bottom of the pan

didn't get a chance to soak any of.

Focaccia.

I'm gonna go with Williams Sonoma,

just a different style of bread used.

Oh, don't do it.

This is a focaccia style stuffing.

Williams Sonoma.

Now, I told you to stop making this stuffing.

So it has all

of the ingredients but the wrong type of bread.

It's a stretch at best to say that this is focaccia,

but I think it capturing some amount

of the essence of focaccia.

I think that Williams Sonoma wanted to give you a reason

as to why they were charging you $20 for this,

so they put a focaccia in there,

but it's not a good bread to use for stuffing.

[Announcer] Aleia's gluten-free savory stuffing.

It does not look like stuffing whatsoever.

It actually looks like couscous.

Looks like quinoa.

Love the addition of carrots.

Sometimes like carrot is so welcome

and other times I'm like, why are you here?

Just be happy with your onion

and your garlic and your celery.

Get out of here.

The celery and the carrots are all bigger

than the what than the what?

Than the stuffing itself.

Wow.

Did you guys see what happened?

It all separated.

It couldn't come together.

Oh, gluten-free bread.

Something that like wants to kind

of fall apart a little bit more readily.

While I didn't enjoy the texture in terms

of the bread component, what I really loved was the crunch

of the carrots, the celery and the onion.

I could taste the chicken stock

Very flavor-forward.

Flavor-wise, like there's just enough kind of dried herb

and aromatics going on.

Whatever the grains are or seeds used to make this bread,

I think maybe something is just like giving a quality

of the flavor that I'm just not entirely expecting.

A little bit nuttier

and seedier than you may be bargained for,

but it's not, like it's not bad.

Don't tell me this is gluten-free.

It's Aleia's best taste ever.

Savory stuffing.

Well, Aleia, you were right about that.

Definitely the best taste.

So this contains white rice flour, tap yoka flour

and brown rice flour.

Tap yoka flour kind of acts

as like the gluten and the bread.

So we'll kind of like hold everything together.

For like a gluten-free off the shelf solution,

I don't think it's bad.

I think, you know, you could just double down on some

of the herb quality here.

Just really hit it with some black pepper.

This stuffing definitely beat out all

of the Williams Sonoma box stuffing so far.

[Announcer] Chef's Cupboard classic herbs and spices,

Hawaiian stuffing mix.

Well, you definitely didn't save the best for last.

Not by the looks of things.

[Participant laughs]

Very stodgy texture.

It's like mushing into a paste.

Save the best for the last, huh?

Maybe you actually can judge a book by its cover.

It's kind of sweet.

What I am getting is sugar, sugar and more sugar.

I'm getting thyme and rosemary,

but the sweetness is kind of killing it for me.

No balance of flavor.

Whatever kind of bread they used

might have a higher sugar content than normal.

Like a Hawaiian roll.

You never want your stuffing to be sweet

because if you are a person

who has a traditional Thanksgiving dinner,

you're gonna have a cranberry sauce on your table.

In the running from my least favorites.

Chef's Cupboard Hawaiian stuffing.

Made with Hawaiian breads.

It's too soft and it's way too sweet.

A tender, very moist,

somewhat sweet bread is like actually kind of antithetical

to what you probably want in a stuffing.

I don't recommend this at all.

My grandma used to say, Melby, K-I-S-S.

KISS, which is an acronym for Keep It Simple Stupid.

Let the flavors come through and speak for themselves.

I think the ideal bread for stuffing, it's light.

It's got an open structure, it's got a pretty defined crust.

It's got a slate chew to it.

When you start to add in a bunch of additional stuff,

your flavors get lost.

[Announcer] Now let's see which boxed stuffing mix

our chefs liked the most and the least.

Today my favorite stuffing

was the Olivia's traditional stuffing.

They added a lot of different herbs

and seasonings that you did not see in the other brands.

My favorite stepping today

was Pepperidge Farm herbs seasoned classic stuffing.

I loved the fact that I was able to taste all

of the seasonings, the herbs were there,

but also it held together nicely.

I thought the Great Value stuffings, honestly like pound

for pound were pretty good.

Somebody really thought

about the overall flavor balance going on with those.

I think the goal of this category of product

is to just have a flavorful stuffing mixture

that's very easy and very streamlined to achieve

without spending a lot of money, and Great Value did that.

My least favorite today was definitely all

of the Williams Sonoma brands.

I can't justify a $20 price tag for something

that's lacking in every department.

My least favorite today

was Chef's Cupboard Hawaiian stuffing.

Who told them to use Hawaiian rolls in stuffing?

It was just sweet, sweet, more sweet.

My least favorite was the Stove Top cornbread flavor.

I mean, it's just, somebody just like hit

the overdo it switch on like the flavorizer 2000.

What we saw was the more

that people just kept it pretty simple

and streamlined, you know, meaty flavor, herbs,

seasonings was pretty much the way to go.