Sasa Recipe

Does this scenario sound familiar? It’s Thanksgiving morning and you head into the kitchen to get cooking…only to discover that there’s only so much space in the oven – which the turkey is taking up most of. I’ve been there, having to (not so) patiently wait my turn at the stove or oven to make my contribution to the meal. Imagine how excited I was to find a fabulous side dish that can be made in a slow cooker on Thanksgiving morning and will be ready just in time for the midday feast! This Slow Cooker Cheesy Chive Spoon Bread is decadent…and SO easy! I’m the first to admit that I don’t use my slow cooker as often as I should…mainly for roasts and soups in the Winter. I found a great recipe for spoon bread at Taste of Home’s website…I cooked it in my office, and it was  piping hot and ready to eat by the time our Thanksgiving luncheon potluck started at 1130!


If you’ve never had spoon bread, this Southern specialty reminds me a bit of corn soufflé. It’s a very moist cornbread-based dish that contains corn kernels and creamed corn. I used Texas-made Morrison’s Texas-Style Yellow Cornbread Mix in this recipe. Texans tend to like their cornbread a touch sweet, which works perfectly in this dish. Morrison’s is based in Denton, Texas, where Michael and I went to college. I’ve been using their products for the past 20+ years, because they always cook up nice and golden. I was thrilled when they recently sent me some of their products to create a Thanksgiving side dish with you! I used chive-flavored cream cheese and green onions to bring a mild onion flavor to the mix, then topped it with shredded four-cheese blend just before serving. All this side dish takes is a few simple ingredients, a quick stir to mix, and 3-4 hours in your slow cooker on  High heat! Folks…it doesn’t get much easier than that…and sometimes easy is just what you need to survive a busy holiday in the kitchen!

As much as I appreciate the pastries, I tend to crave savory foods in the morning. And these biscuits are savory in all senses of the word. In the biscuit universe, there are two main categories: rolled and dropped. Rolled biscuits are a drier dough, which can be, uh, rolled. They are cut out, like scones, either in wedges from a chubby disc, or from a slab of dough using round biscuit cutters. Of course, you can use a glass for this purpose. The cutters do have an function that they achieve better than glasses (other than cluttering up your kitchen drawers): the sharp edges cut through the dough without fusing together the edges of the layers the way a blunt-lipped drinking glass will, and thus your biscuits will bake up higher, fluffier, and flakier. And, as an added bonus, you can buy the biscuit cutters with adorable scalloped edges, upping your brunchs cuteness factor. That said, this distinction between glass-cut and cutter-cut biscuits isnt huge enough to make a difference to the casual biscuit eater (like myself).

On the other side, there are drop biscuits like these. Drop biscuits involve a much wetter dough, that you couldnt cut if you wanted to. It occupies that gloppy space between dough and batter. To shape these, most recipes have you plop the dough onto a greased cookie sheet using two spoons. In this variation, you scoop the dough into a flour-lined dish to dredge the doughballs with a full floury coating, and then plop them next to each other in a cake pan (or, in my case, cast-iron skillet). The biscuits expand to touch each other, but the floury coating allows you to pull them apart somewhat easily.

One item unites both variations: buttermilk. Well, I suppose butter, flour, salt, and leavening do as well. But the buttermilk seems most important. In middle school home ec, I was taught to use sourmilk (milk thats sat for a few minutes with a squeeze of lemon juice or vinegar) as a buttermilk replacement. For the most part it works, giving the baked goods moistness, and providing the necessary acidity to activate the baking soda. But in biscuits like these, Id say its worth going for the real thing. The dough is so simple that the tangy flavor really comes through. Plus leftover buttermilk gives you the excuse to bake all sorts of deliciousness.

If these biscuits were better for you, Id recommend cooking up a double batch, and throwing extras in the freezer to toast for brunch throughout the week. Then again, these biscuits arent health nightmares: only half a stick of butter (with a few extra spoonfuls drizzled on top), and they can be made with low-fat buttermilk. Of course, their not-that-bad-for-you cred might have been compromised by the fact that we ate them piled with eggs that had been baked on a bed of spinach, mushrooms, and heavy cream. Which I want all over again right now.