Pork and Stuffing Muffins

I successfully married pork and boxed stuffing into a cute little … muffin! The Stuffin Muffin becomes THE PUFFIN!!! 

 

The Pork And Stuffin Muffin – THE PUFFIN!

I know, right?

Pork – meaty, savory, porky, protein rich. Muffin – bready, moist, and good with strong coffee. Separate, they are wonderful. Together? Umm, initially, it took me a bit to wrap my sweet head around it. I mean, come on’ – What do you call it? A Pork Muffin? A Porkfin? A Sturffin?

Regardless of what one might call it, – it’s strange. But hey, how can you go wrong? Savory pork and stuffing. Who doesn’t like that combination, and besides, we ALLL know what strange means to me. It means I gotta try it. So… without further adieu, I give you………. a porffin?

Whatever.

 

WHAT INGREDIENTS DO I NEED TO MAKE THESE SAVORY STUFFIN MUFFINS?

Here’s what you need to make this wildly creative, culinary masterpiece:

•  A muffin tin,
• two eggs (three, actually. I’ll explain later),
• ground pork,
• and a box of good ole’ prepared stuffin’.

 

It’s always nice to try and match the flavors for this extravaganza.  I mean, if you get ground pork.. try and used the boxed stuffing specifically for pork. If you get ground turkey, (which is perfectly acceptable protein choice in this situation for all you turkey lurvers out there), use the stuffing for turkey.

I know, I know….. Thank you for pointing out the fact that I combined ground pork and turkey Stove Top Stuffing.  But ground pork was what my freezer had, and turkey boxed stuffing was what the store had. No big deal. I’m comfortable flying that kind of flag out there for everyone to see.

You know, the REBEL flag, and if you’re comfortable with it, you should too!

Ok, so, because I can’t just be normal and go along with direction, I like to “doctor” things up. That would the boxed stuffing that I’m talking about. If you have extra “aromatics” in your fridge folks, doctor it up! I started sauteing celery (and lots of it because celery and I have had an intense love/love relationship for many years), and onion with a touch of garlic. That particular day, I decided to live on the edge and add some hot chili flakes to the party. I added about a tablespoon. (KEEP READING!!!)

Turns out I’m not as edgy as I thought.

Dial down the chili flakes folks. Don’t go crazy here. Learn from my mistakes. Especially if you’re not too adventurous on the whole spicy thing. Start with half a teaspoon.. or maybe even a pinch.. you can always add more.

So at this point, when the aromatics are soft, make the stuffing according to the box instructions. Once that’s finished, and slightly cooled, add your pound of ground pork (or chicken, or turkey) and THREE eggs. I realize I had previously said two, and I actually did only use two, but I found the finished product SLIGHTLY crumbly, so an extra egg would hug up all those ingredients and make them stick together much better.

Mix it up well, but not TOO well. You don’t want to over mix it and the combination to go all…. gloopy, so mix it until it’s just nicely incorporated. Then, spoon it into your greased muffin pans.

WHAT SIZE OF MUFFIN PAN SHOULD I USE FOR THIS STUFFIN MUFFIN RECIPE?

If you are of the regular human race, I can say that normal muffin pans make these stuffin muffins the perfect size. However, apparently, I was making them for GIANTS, because I was using the large muffin pans and got only six from the whole recipe.

Again… learn from my mistakes.

Spoon them into the tins at the fullness that you want as they don’t puff up, obviously, as a cake muffin would.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes. (All depending on what size of muffin tin you used. I used a longer cook time because of the muffins for Giants that I was making.) Use your logic okay? We are dealing with ground pork (or any ground meat), so it’s imperative that it’s thoroughly cooked.

If in doubt, use a thermometer and cook them till you have an internal temperature of 160 degrees for pork and 165 for turkey or chicken.

FYI – At the very end of cooking time, turn on your blast broiler for a  minute or two. It creates this mildly crunchy top that is FANFREECKENSTASTIC!

These puppies are awesome with a side salad for a lunch, or even for a quick breakfast heated up in the microwave. Ok, listen, you can have them for ANY meal really, because they’re just that good.

CAN YOU FREEZE STUFFIN MUFFINS .. OR.. ‘PUFFINS’?

Lastly, these freeze like champions!! A word of caution here though. Please only freeze them fully cooked, not raw. Freezing them raw is just asking for bubbly guts (or worse!) if the thawing process doesn’t play out right (aka safely). Also, when freezing them, wrap them up nice and securely, individually, in plastic wrap or in those new, handy dandy beeswax wraps.

 

 

So I hope you give this pork and stuffin muffin – THE PUFFIN recipe a try! How did you change up the ingredients? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below! Thanks so much for stopping by The Salty Pot today and I hope you have a fantastic day! 

**DON’T FORGET TO PIN THIS PORK AND STUFFIN MUFFIN RECIPE TO YOUR FAVORITE PINTEREST BOARD FOR SAKE KEEPING TO USE LATER! **