7 Easy Thanksgiving Stuffing Recipes That'll Spice Up Your Holiday Table

It's common knowledge that even though the Thanksgiving meal revolves around the turkey, the bird isn't exactly the star of the show. There's the cranberry sauce, the pies, the sweet potatoes, and, of course, the stuffing. Stuffing, in my humble, stuffing-loving opinion, is like family jewelry. Recipes get passed from generation to generation, with the expectation that you will either adhere to them exactly or add your own unique spin. Even better, there is no stuffing recipe that cannot be improved with more butter, more chicken broth, or more thyme. Stuffing is the quintessential recipe-hater’s recipe: proportions are inexact, ingredients can be shuffled around, and no batch will turn out quite like another. In my mother’s words (she makes great stuffing): “Good stuffing is like good sex. It makes you go back for seconds, sometimes thirds.”

In the spirit of celebrating Thank-heavens-for-stuffing-giving, here are 7 easy Thanksgiving stuffing recipes that run the gamut from traditional to over-the-top, incorporating ingredients like crabmeat, quinoa, roasted pumpkin, and apple sausage.

Fair warning: stuffing is the only dish on the Thanksgiving table that doesn’t improve with age (everything else is better leftover, think about it), so always cook just enough to leave ‘em wanting more next year.