My Favorite Cornbread Recipe
This post was originally published on September 23, 2007. It’s one of the oldest recipes on the site and the pictures were in desperate need of an update. Below is the easy recipe for my favorite cornbread.
Let’s talk cornbread.
If I go to a restaurant and open the menu and see cornbread listed somewhere, I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot. Bonus points if it’s served in a piping hot cast iron skillet. The absolute best restaurant cornbread I’ve ever had was at Copper Canyon Grill in Rockville, Maryland. I could eat the entire pan and make it my meal… amazing.
When I make cornbread at home, I gravitate towards pan-baking my cornbread versus skillet baking. For some reason, I’ve always had better luck with those recipes turning out a bit tastier, and the leftovers tend to stay fresher longer. I’ve been making this recipe for over eight years now, and it continues to be my go-to when I want to throw together a pan of fresh cornbread.
This is a perfect recipe to keep on hand when you need a quick and easy cornbread. If you keep some corn in the freezer and buttermilk in your refrigerator, you will likely have everything you need to throw this together in less than 10 minutes. All it takes is a bowl, a blender or food processor and a spatula. That’s IT!
The resulting recipe is crusty on the outside, moist on the inside and loaded with bits of real corn. I served this on Sunday with my slow cooker BBQ ribs and it was the perfect sidekick.
I’m a cornbread lover for life!
One year ago: Coffee and Doughnuts Ice Cream
Two years ago: Mississippi Mud Brownies
Four years ago: Everything Bagels
Five years ago: Homemade Pop-Tarts
Six years ago: Better-Than-Brownies Chocolate Cookies
Best Cornbread Recipe
I’ve been making this easy cornbread recipe for nearly 10 years – it results in moist, fresh-tasting cornbread each and every time!
Ingredients:
- 1½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon table salt
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- ¾ cup frozen corn kernels, thawed
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray an 8-inch square baking dish (glass is recommended) with non-stick cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt until combined; set aside.
- In a food processor or blender, process the sugar, thawed corn kernels and buttermilk until combined, about 5 seconds. Add the eggs and process until well combined (corn lumps will remain), about 5 seconds longer.
- Using a rubber spatula, make a well in the center of the dry ingredients; pour the wet ingredients into the well. Fold the dry ingredients into wet, giving the mixture only a few turns to barely combine; add the melted butter and continue folding until the dry ingredients are just moistened (do not overmix!).
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and smooth the surface with a rubber spatula. Bake until deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 20 to 30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then invert cornbread onto wire rack, turn right side up and continue to cool until warm, about 10 minutes longer. Cut into pieces and serve.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
(Recipe from Cook’s Illustrated)
All images and text ©
i’ve been looking for a good cornbread recipe, thanks!
I love sugar in my cornbread, but never thought to do brown sugar. This sounds fantastic!
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This looks and sounds awesome! I will have to keep it in mind for when I make chili this fall/winter.
Great cornbread recipe! I am having a Halloween party with chili on menu and I can’t wait to whip up the cornbread. Thanks for all the great ideas!
Thanks
Just made these with whole wheat pastry flour and they came out great!
I made these with a slow cooker chili recipe that I found online. They were good, but I think I might have overmixed my batter accidentally. I just kept seeing so many dry flour clumps everywhere! I was mixing and mixing and mixing… Definitely not “only a few turns”. Whoops!
What about a laye of crumbled bacon, cubed ham, or sliced sausage to the top?
Love your website, Pamela
Hi Pamela, All of those sound delicious!
HI MIchelle – just to let you know, I’m having a hard time pinning this – it says I need to provide the image url or something.
Hi Courtney, I was just able to pin it without a problem. Maybe try restarting your browser and give it another go.
will have to try this – mine is similar, but never thought to use brown sugar and I usually bake it in cast iron
Recipe looks great, but I can’t pin this because non of the pictures are being isolated there.
Any idea how long this keeps for? Id like to make it ahead of time… Friday for a party Sunday. Thoughts?
Hi Trina, It’s definitely best fresh. If you make it two days ahead of time, be sure to wrap it tightly in plastic wrap. You might want to warm it up when you serve it if it seems a little dry.
Hi! Can I double the all- purpose cornbread?
Hi Julie, I haven’t done so, but I think it should work okay.
Hi Michelle,
Absolutely great website! I plan on making this corn bread and I wanted to know if I can substitute the butter with sunflower oil?
Hi Sarah, I think that doing so would affect the final the texture and taste.
Thanks Michelle! By the time I got your response I had already decided to use margarine. It was truly fantastic! Everything you describe it to be: crunchy just yum! I made this with your creamy basil tomatoe soup but I used 16 fresh tomatoes cause where I live they are tonnes cheaper and more available. Perfection!! Thanks for these great recipes-My family and I are thoroughly enjoying them-even my LO (9 months) been doing one to two recipes a week and they really give me something to look forward to each week :-) Thankyou so much!!
I’m sorry Michelle, I love your recipes but I couldn’t imagine cornbread not made in a cast iron skillet. If only you could replicate that deep golden crust that the bacon fat creates as it fries the batter pouring into the hot cast iron pan, yielding a crisp crust encapsulating an ever moist and delicate crumb – yum!
I was just going to suggest that she heat up oil/bacon grease in the cast iron skillet before adding the mix. That is the way my grandma’s always made it, and I agree, so delicious.
My folks put half a stick of butter in the cast iron skillet, and lets it melt in the oven while the oven preheats. It makes all the difference–you don’t need it to stay fresh more than a couple days, because it won’t be around that long!
Also, I can’t begin to say how wrong adding sugar to cornbread is. To each their own, I guess.
I’m a big fan of Cook’s Illustrated, but when it comes to cornbread I’m all about the cast iron skillet. Sorry C.I.
They do have a cast iron skillet recipe as well… I don’t know if I just fail every time, but they always come out a little dry for me!
I also use a cast iron skillet. Can’t remember ever making it in anything else.
I live in Australia and I don’t think we can get cornmeal here. Is polenta the same thing? I grew up in Canada, never had cornbread but I still remember coming home at lunch to my mom’s cornmeal muffins. Those were special days!
Hi Wendy, Polenta is made from cornmeal… as long as what you’re buying is the ground corn and not prepared polenta, that will work!
I’m laughing…i live close to Rockville, MD. Never have been to the restaurant u mention, now I’m going to have to try it. Anything else you want to recommend here. We can’t find a decent Italian restaurant, but we are spoiled from growing up in Rochester NY
Hi Lisa! My husband lived near there for about six years (and for the first couple of years that we were dating, so I visited often!). I don’t recall ever going to an Italian restaurant, but Vasilis in the Kentlands in Gaithersburg is the best Greek restaurant I’ve ever been to… Jackie’s in Silver Spring is phenomenal.
These photos are making me crave cornbread! :) I have tried various recipes through the years but don’t have one yet that I’m partial to. I am bookmarking this one to try soon; I have never seen brown sugar used in cornbread and am interested to see/taste how it will turn out! :)
Nice images. Thanks for sharing the Cornbread recipe.
Excellent! I have had several fails with homemade cornbread. I can never get it to taste like what I’ve had in restaurants or in mixes (Trader Joe’s being our favorite!). This one rivals both in taste and texture. Thanks for the recipe!
Have you ever tried a double batch in say a 9×15″pan? Thoughts?
Hi Kathy, If you double, I would put it in a 9×13-inch pan. Enjoy!
HI!
If I wanted to make this recipe without the corn kernels, should I sub in more flour or cornmeal or some other ingredient? Or just leave them out. Not sure how that would affect the volume or the baking time of the finished product.
Thanks!
Hi Taylor, I’ve never tried to omit all of the kernels, I’m not sure what type of substitution would be necessary, if any.
Hi Michelle and Taylor-
I made this recipe last night and omitted the corn kernels because I didn’t have any. Everything else was left the same including the baking time. It turned out great! Moist and delicious. This is now my go to recipe for cornbread! Next time I will try it with the corn. Thanks Michelle!
Hey, Michelle! Just popping in to let you know I’ve included your cornbread recipe in my mini round-up of cornbread recipes on Taste As You Go. :)
I made this exactly as posted. I didn’t like it because the cornmeal stayed hard even after cooking it. I also felt it needed to be a little sweeter.
Very popular at the New Years Day meal we had. Fluffy, moist, and tasty! Recipe is Easy to follow and forgiving, I messed up on one of the steps and it still came out tasting great. Hands down the best cornbread I’ve made.