Name: Caramelized Onion Pear & Walnut Stuffing
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 6 servings
Cuisine: Vegetarian
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons unsalted butter (divided (sub for vegan butter)); 2 large yellow onions (thinly sliced); 1 loaf sourdough bread (cut into 1-inch pieces); 2 tablespoons olive oil; 2 cloves garlic (minced); 3 pears (chopped); 1 cup diced celery; 1 cup shelled walnuts (plus more for garnish); 1 cup dried cranberries; 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley (plus more for garnish); 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme; 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth (sub for vegetable broth to keep vegetarian); Salt and pepper to taste

Caramelized Onion Pear & Walnut Stuffing

Caramelized Onion Pear & Walnut Stuffing. A flavorful and easy-to-make Thanksgiving stuffing made with caramelized onions, pears, celery, walnuts, and dried cranberries. Since I was a kid, stuffing was always my favorite side dish at Thanksgiving. Maybe because I grew up eating…

Ready 1 hour

Serves 6 servings

Prep 10 minutes

Cook 1 hour

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Caramelized Onion Pear & Walnut Stuffing. A flavorful and easy-to-make Thanksgiving stuffing made with caramelized onions, pears, celery, walnuts, and dried cranberries.

Since I was a kid, stuffing was always my favorite side dish at Thanksgiving. Maybe because I grew up eating Cuban-Style Three Meat + Plantain Stuffing. Yup, that was one hearty stuffing. I looked forward to that dish every year!

Last year was the first time my mom requested a vegetarian stuffing. Trust me, I was just as shocked. Her logic was that we shouldn’t mix so many meats into one dinner. We’re already having turkey so we can’t have ground meat too. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

We ended up making some random recipe from the Internets. This year, however, I’m bringing something new to the table – this caramelized onion, pear, and walnut stuffing!

The most important ingredient for this stuffing is patience. Why? Because caramelizing onions takes SO LONG. I love them. They’re delicious. But I wish I could just buy them in the store already ready to go. I am not a patient person. The good news is you can caramelized onions ahead of time and place them in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Oh and in case you were wondering, this nonstick pan is the BEST pan for caramelizing onions.

Recommended For This Recipe

9×13 Baking Dish

This Staub casserole dish is absolutely incredible! It has a porcelain-enamel finish and is microwave/dishwasher safe!

Once you caramelized the onions, the rest is pretty straight forward. In a skillet, you melt butter then add pears, celery, walnuts, cranberries and herbs. Sauté for a few minutes while you toast the bread in the oven. Mix everything together – bread, onions, this delicious pear walnut mixture – and into a baking dish it goes.

The result is a sweet, salty, slightly moist, flavorful combo that also happens to be a great vegetarian option! I honestly can’t say any more good things about this dish.

Stuffing is one of those dishes where you can truly customize it to your liking. That’s just what I did here. I loooove caramelized onions. So I started with that as the base and just kept thinking of different variations. After a few recipe tests, this version was my absolute favorite.

I hope you make it and LOVE it!