Could I Swap The Bacon In The Gingerbread Stuffing For Sausage Meat?

Our answer

Nigella's Gingerbread Stuffing (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) is made with sticky gingerbread loaf cake, rather than regular breadcrumbs. This makes the stuffing spiced and slightly sweet and acts as a balance to the salty bacon. Unfortunately we can't recommend using sausage meat as an aternative as it is a very different ingredient to bacon.

Bacon is cured, so it is salty and has a low moisture content. Sausage meat is not cured and has a lot of extra moisture, so the stuffing unfortunately would become a fairly solid, soggy mass. If you want to use sausage meat in a stuffing then we would suggest looking at Nigella's recipe for Turkey Breast Stuffed With Italian Sausage And Marsala-Steeped Cranberries, using sausage meat instead of the Italian sausages. We suspect that this stuffing could be cooked in a small loaf pan, a small ovenproof dish or small roasting pan at 200c/180c Fan/400F for about 45 minutes. Check that the stuffing is thoroughtly cooked before serving. A skewer inserted into the centre of the stuffing should come out with the tip feeling hot (test the tip very carefully) or ideally check the temperature at the centre of the stuffing with a digital (instant-read) thermometer - the temperature should be at least 76c/179F.