What is the difference, in your opinion, between dressing and stuffing?

I think stuffing is stuffed in the bird and cooked along with the bird.

Dressing is placed around the bird rather than in it. Don’t know if it cooks with the bird or if it’s cooked separately then put around the bird before serving.

In my experience (I’m sure not shared by all) the only difference is spelling (and region).

^^ I also see them as meaning the same thing.

Dictionary.com says they’re the same thing.

Dressing is a liquid you put on salad. Stuffing is a bread-based food that you stuff in a bird.

I’ve never heard “dressing” to mean anything other than salad dressing. Must be a regional thing.

I’ve always thought they were the same thing with “dressing” having a more Southern-US origin. But I was recently told that if the bread/rice/corn bread mixture is cooked IN the bird, it’s stuffing. Cooked OUTSIDE the bird, it’s dressing.

And yes, there’s the dressing you put on salad, but that’s different.

Dressing is placed in a baking dish & “baked” in the oven where stuffing is “stuffed” inside the cavity of the turkey & cooked inside the bird. I believe they are the same ingredients…just cooked different.

@cookieman and @LadyMarissa Do you remember how and from where you got your information?

I think technically stuffing is when it’s been stuffed in the bird, but I use stuffing for whether it went in the bird or not. I never personally say dressing, but plenty of people do. I agree that mostly I think it’s just a regional thing and used synonymously.

@kritiper: Of all places, my friend told me she heard Jamie Lee Curtis say it recently on a podcast (I think).

Is it that the antonym of dressing is a precursor to stuffing?

Or is stuffing in and dressing out?

@kritiper Mine comes from my observations in life & a discussion between my Mom & my mother-in-law. I grew up in the South where you mix the ingredients, place it in a baking dish & bake in the oven “next to” the turkey. After moving out of my parents home & living in DC (still South of the Mason-Dixon line but a LOT further North) I discovered that you mixed the same ingredients, stuff it “inside” the turkey & put the turkey it in the oven to cook. Dressing is a good bit dryer than stuffing cooked inside the bird. My MIL cooked both so everybody could have their preference. Although I like both, I prefer dressing with tons of gravy!!! ;]

The answer from my New England childhood: stuffing is cooked inside the bird, while dressing is toasted in a separate pan. I remember my grandmother preparing the ingredients both ways.

This terminology is likely a regional thing,

I have a 1939 cookbook with colored pictures. I look through it sometimes. There is a picture of a cooked turkey and it said, “This season’s well dressed bird has stuffing under the skin.” I ran with that and I’ve put stuffing under the skin as far as I can, as well and in the cavity. That way it soaks down through the meat and O man, is it good!

My mom was from the Pacific Northwest, my dad was from Texas. They both called it stuffing.

FANTASTIC answers, folks! Keep ‘em coming!

We always called stuffing cooked inside the bird “wet stuffing” and stuffing cooked in a pan (a casserole dish actually) “dry stuffing”. My family says that, at least. I don’t know if anyone else does.

All I really know is that we didn’t have my traditional family stuffing this year. My son and his wife hosted and wanted to do it all (except the bread. I got to do my bread) and we had box stuffing.