Cornbread (Southern)

Easy·7 min active + 37 min resting

Cornmeal, buttermilk, egg, baking soda, baked in a screaming-hot cast-iron skillet greased with bacon fat. No sugar.

Egg

Pre-Columbian Native American cornmeal cake (pone, ashcake) adapted by Southerners with buttermilk and pork fat in the 18th-19th centuries. Sugar-and-flour Northern cornbread is the Yankee version; the no-sugar question is the South-vs-North shibboleth still fought today.

The Southern Foodways Alliance has documented the no-sugar line as far back as 1838 cookbooks. Crackling cornbread (with rendered pork-skin bits) and hot-water cornbread (fried patties) are kin. Lodge cast-iron skillets (Tennessee, since 1896) are the standard pan; a well-seasoned hand-me-down is the marker.

Crackle-crisp brown bottom and edges from the hot skillet, tender almost-grainy crumb, savory not sweet. Eaten with collards, pinto beans, chili, or crumbled into buttermilk for a glass of cornbread-and-milk. Square cuts or wedges.

Preheating the cast-iron skillet to 230°C with bacon fat or lard before pouring batter: instant sear creates the gospel-crisp brown bottom. Buttermilk's lactic acid reacts with baking soda for lift; egg sets the crumb. No sugar, no flour in the strict Southern recipe.

Variations

Hot-water cornbread (fried patty), crackling cornbread (with cracklin's), spoon bread (custardy, eaten with a spoon), Mexican-style (jalapeño, cheddar, creamed corn), Yankee (sugar+flour), Lodge skillet round vs cornstick pan (kernel-shaped molds).

On the Palate

Where Cornbread (Southern) sits in the American flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 8

240g (8 oz)Cornmeal

stone-ground, white

240ml (1 cups)Buttermilk

How it's made

5 steps · 7 min active + 37 min waiting

1
15 min
Preheat oven to 220 °C with a 25 cm cast-iron skillet inside.
Watch out
Get the skillet screaming hot in the oven first — a cold pan means no crackly bottom crust, which is the whole point.
2
2 min
Whisk 240 g cornmeal, 60 g flour, 1 tbsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt.
3
3 min
Stir in 2 eggs and 500 ml buttermilk until just combined.
4
2 min
Add 3 tbsp bacon fat to hot skillet; pour batter into sizzling fat.
Watch out
The batter should hiss and sizzle the instant it hits the fat — if it's quiet, the pan wasn't hot enough.
5
22 min
Bake 22 min until top is golden and edges pull from sides.
Watch out
It's done when the top is golden and the edges shrink and pull away from the pan — flip it out and the bottom should be deep brown.

Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed

These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.

Cast-Iron Skillet

A heavy, single-piece cast iron pan, 25-30 cm across, weighing 1.5-2.5 kg. Once preheated, the thick mass holds 230°C+ even when a cold steak hits the surface — that's the secret to a deep crust. A well-seasoned skillet (multiple thin layers of polymerized oil baked into the iron) is essentially nonstick, gets better with use, and lasts a century. Lodge skillets from Tennessee have been in continuous production since 1896.

Techniques

Baking