Easy Cornbread Recipe

This Easy Cornbread is your newest counter top staple with its crispy edges and soft inside. It’s good for breakfast, lunch, or dinner as either an accompaniment to some hearty, meaty meals or devoured all on its own with a bit of butter and honey. We get our rich color from cornmeal, which lends us the flavor that the bread is named after!

In my cookbook I shared with you one of my easy recipes for my favorite cornbread but I’m surprised I never shared one with you here on the blog. So I thought it was about time I did. There’s just something about a hot slice of buttery, bouncy, bright cornbread. It’s got the perfect amount of chew and a vegetal straight up corny flavor!

You don’t need to live in the southern most states to whip up your own batch of cornbread, especially when it’s such a great loaf to keep on your counter – ready to be sliced up and snacked on or paired with a nice meaty entree. Don’t believe me? Try it with some chili, stew, or just all on it’s own smothered in honey and butter – you’ll thank me later.

What Is Cornbread?

Do you all recall my quick bread post? It detailed how to make a great fluffy bread without yeast, substituting baking powder and baking soda in its place to create volume and airiness in our bread. Cornbread is the same, it’s a quick bread that uses cornmeal to achieve its color and maize-y flavor.

Ingredients

• Cornmeal – It’s not cornbread without cornmeal! This will give our bread color, flavor, and texture so be sure to pick some up.
• Flour – Just regular all purpose works just fine today, no need for fancy bread flour.
• Sugar – We need to balance out our savory salty flavors today, I just used plain old white granulated sugar but feel free to use brown if you’d prefer.
• Leavening agents – These are going to be baking powder and baking soda today. The combination of these two are what allows our bread to rise without the help of yeast.
• Eggs – We’re using 2 large eggs.
• Buttermilk – Buttermilk is key for flavor and texture today, if you don’t have any on hand scroll down for instructions on how to make your own.
• Butter – Unsalted and melted down before being incorporated.
• Seasoning – Just some salt today, a necessity in baking.

Why Buttermilk?

Let’s talk about the buttermilk in cornbread because the buttermilk plays a very important role here. The buttermilk will add complexity and depth to your bread. It acts a chemical tenderizer and adds some great acidity to our bread, you’ll find buttermilk sneaking it’s way into quite a few baking recipes so be sure to pick some up!

You can even freeze your buttermilk till you need it next, making it an easy to use baking staple.

How To Make Cornbread

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F degrees and place a large cast iron skillet inside to heat it while you make the batter.
2. Combine the batter: In a large bowl whisk the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl whisk the buttermilk, eggs and melted butter, reserve 1 tbsp of butter, this will be used to grease the skillet.
3. Reduce the oven temp: Carefully remove the skillet from the oven then reduce the oven temperature to 375 F degrees.
4. Bake the cornbread: Coat the skillet with the reserved 1 tbsp of butter. Pour the batter in the skillet and place it in the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until firm. Cool for 15 minutes before serving with butter and honey.

Some Tips

• Be sure to whisk out all the lumps before baking your cornbread – some recipes call for a lumpy batter but this is not one of them!
• While we don’t want a lumpy batter, we also don’t want to over mix – it’s all about finding that perfect balance before too much gluten develops.
• Honey is a great substitute for sugar in this recipe if you’d prefer to use that instead, it also tastes delicious drizzled over top our finished product.

Can I Make My Own Buttermilk?

If you can’t find any at the store, or you didn’t feel like buying some just for this recipe – fear not! You can make your own buttermilk quite easily with just regular milk and something acidic.

Just take 1 cup of regular milk and mix in either 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or fresh lemon juice. Let stand for 15 minutes before incorporating.

What Can I Serve Cornbread With?

I like to slice up my corn bread and smother it with butter and honey – but that’s just me. If you’d like it to accompany some entrees, here are some picture perfect partners for your latest and greatest culinary creation.

• One Pot Chili Mac And Cheese Chili
• World’s Best Chili
• Crockpot Beef Stew
• Mexican Pork Stew
• Instant Pot Beef Stew
• Ratatouille

Storing Leftovers

Once the cornbread has cooled completely wrap it in aluminum foil or plastic wrap. It will stay fresh at room temperature for up to 3 days. You can also refrigerate it for up to 6 days.

Freezing

Wrap the cooled cornbread tightly with aluminum foil or plastic freezer wrap, then place it in a freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months.

Reheating

If you froze the cornbread, thaw it out at room temperature for about an hour, unwrap it then transfer it to a baking sheet or loaf pan and bake for about 5 to 10 min at 350 F degrees or until heated through.

Craving More Dreamy Breads? Try These:

• Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Loaf
• Pumpkin Cinnamon Bread
• Healthy Whole Wheat Banana Nut Bread
• Cream Cheese Filled Banana Cake
• Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake
• Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Loaf
• Limoncello Lemon Cake
• Old Fashioned Lemon Bread
• Zucchini Bread
• Chocolate Zucchini Bread
• Banana Nut Bread