The Flavorful Sourdough Stuffing Marilyn Monroe Loved To Cook At Home

Decades after her death at the young age of 36, people are still fascinated by Marilyn Monroe, one of Hollywood's most legendary actors and an American icon. Not only did her films draw in crowds, fans also wanted to know the details of her personal life including what she liked to eat. It turns out, this blonde bombshell ate breakfast like a bodybuilder. She could certainly hold her own in the kitchen. One piece of evidence for this is a recipe for sourdough stuffing Monroe herself casually wrote down on a piece of paper.

The recipe wouldn't be described as "simple" by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, there are many highly-involved steps, suggesting Monroe was rather ambitious in the kitchen. In addition to boiling chicken livers, soaking a large loaf of sourdough bread, cooking ground beef until "no piece is larger than a pistachio," and chopping up a ginormous amount of ingredients, the recipe made a whopping 20 cups of stuffing. If Monroe wasn't cooking Thanksgiving dinner for a crowd, we can only assume she and husband Joe DiMaggio had a fridge full of leftovers that year.

Her sourdough stuffing actually sounds pretty tasty. If you've got the time, pour yourself a glass of champagne (Monroe's preferred drink), clear your schedule, and see why this starlet thought the recipe was worth jotting down.

The base of Marilyn Monroe's stuffing is a 10-ounce loaf of sourdough bread, which may be a nod to San Francisco, where she and her husband were living at the time she wrote down the recipe. Instead of cutting the bread into cubes like most stuffing recipes call for, her recipe calls for splitting the loaf in half and soaking the halves in water for 15 minutes before wringing the water out and shredding the bread by hand. Outside of the chopped chicken livers (the most overlooked part of the chicken) and ground beef mentioned above, the stuffing combined celery, onion, parsley, hard boiled eggs, raisins, grated Parmesan cheese, walnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts, rosemary, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper.

All the ingredients get tossed together and baked in the oven. The stuffing has an excellent mix of flavors and textures. It's primarily savory but has the unexpected sweetness from the raisins, and the added nuts give the stuffing some texture. Reviews online indicate there isn't enough moisture in the recipe, but suggest adding butter on the top while the pan is baking to offset it. That, or selecting a fattier blend of ground beef. No matter, it's clearly a recipe worthy of a star.