Level Up Your Stuffing With White Castle—Yes, We Said White Castle
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Fat Joe's Favorite Stuffing
Thanksgiving is around the corner, which means stuffing season is upon us and it’s not surprising to see a zillion different versions online—made with pretzels, cornbread and even donuts. To be honest, we thought we’d seen just about every kind of dressing and stuffing recipe imaginable, so when we recently learned that "White Castle Stuffing" is a thing, our minds were a little blown and we had to investigate.
We were tipped off to this subgenre of the Thanksgiving side via an unlikely source, the rapper Fat Joe. He partnered with White Castle this year to spice up his stuffing with White Castle, plus a few other ingredients. More about Fat Joe's stuffing later, but first, let's take a trip back to the 90s.
Related: Stuffing vs. Dressing: What's the Difference?
What Is White Castle Stuffing?
According to the Midwestern chain behind the famous beef sliders, the crave-worthy creation was born in 1991 when an employee decided to “enhance” her grandmother's family stuffing recipe with the moist, onion-y mini burgers.
We did some internet sleuthing and sure enough, this spin on the classic side dish has seemingly developed a cult following. In 2017, The Washington Post published a dressing recipe “based on the 1991 original” and a quick Google search yields plenty of copycat versions. Across the web, we uncovered fans on every corner of social media.
“My aunt, a generally very healthy person, makes this every year and swears by it. She’s not wrong, it’s pretty good,” said one Reddit user.
“Actually not too far from how some people make stuffing in the South. Bread (cornbread and sometimes some sort of white bread) + ground sausage + seasoning + broth. In this you're basically subbing the sausage for hamburger meat,” commented another Reddit user.
On Instagram, actor/writer/director @jonfavreau, who has 2.5 million followers posted about making it and the post got almost 30,000 likes:
“This is genius ❤️,” commented one user.
“I thought this would be disgusting. But I made it and my kids and I went crazy. SO GOOD!!💕,” wrote another.
Related: The Best Copycat White Castle Recipes
What Is Fat Joe's Version of White Castle Stuffing?
Ok, so where does Fat Joe come into this? Turns out the Bronx-born rapper—who is probably best known for his 2002 hit “What’s Luv?” featuring Ashanti and Ja Rule—is also a White Castle, and White Castle stuffing, fan. His recipe has many of the standard stuffing ingredients, including celery, butter and chicken broth, but he makes it his own by using jalapeño cheese White Castle sliders, some chopped fresh jalapeño pepper, ground cumin, pepper jack cheese and his special ingredient, sazón, the Latin seasoning blend. “Keep it real Latino in here for the holidays,” he says as he stirs the sazón into the slider mixture.
The slider stuffing goes into a baking dish covered for a bit, then bakes uncovered for a few more minutes to get a brown, bubbly top. At the end of the video, Fat Joe digs right into the dish with a fork. "Incredible. Just right," he says. And as skeptical as we were, the idea of mini burgers plus jalapeños plus cheese sounds pretty great. We bet it would also make a great leftover the next day topped with a fried egg for breakfast.
Recipe reprinted with permission from White Castle.
Next up: The 16 Best Thanksgiving Side Dish Casseroles
Fat Joe’s White Castle Jalapeño Slider Stuffing
Ingredients
12 White Castle Jalapeño Cheese Sliders
10 Tbsp butter
1 cup diced celery
1 finely diced jalapeño pepper
1 tsp sazón
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3/4 cup turkey or chicken broth
2 eggs
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese
1. Melt your butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and jalapeño pepper and cook until soft.
2. Heat your sliders according to package instructions. Cut into quarters.
3. In a large mixing bowl or pan, mix quartered sliders with the sazón, salt, pepper and cumin. Mix in the cilantro and the vegetables from the skillet. If cooking the stuffing in the turkey, add the pepper jack cheese now.
4. In a small bowl, mix broth and eggs. Pour over the stuffing mixture and stir until evenly distributed.
5. Place stuffing mixture in a 9-by-13-inch baking dish and top with your pepper jack cheese.
6. Cover and bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover and continue cooking until browned on top, 15 to 20 minutes longer.
