Spare Spoons Kitchen
Southern
Skillet Cornbread
The savory Southern kind — a screaming-hot cast-iron pan gives it a crackly golden crust, and there's no sugar to get in the way. Built to go under chili, beside greens, or crumbled into dressing.
Ingredients
Easier, if you like
- Self-rising cornmeal mix (Martha White or White Lily) can replace the cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt — the classic Southern pantry shortcut. Just add the eggs, buttermilk, and fat. Martha White's Buttermilk mix has the buttermilk built in, so plain milk works too.
- No cast iron? Any metal cake pan or oven-safe skillet works — preheat it with the fat the same way for a crisp bottom.
Method
Cook's notes
True Southern cornbread is barely sweet — there's no sugar here on purpose, so it stands up to chili, greens, and gravy and crumbles cleanly into dressing. Add 1–2 tbsp sugar if you like it sweeter.
Bacon drippings are the traditional fat and give the best flavor; butter is the easy stand-in. Either way, heat it in the skillet until it sizzles.
Stone-ground cornmeal gives the best corn flavor and texture; common fine yellow cornmeal works too. Don't use sweetened "corn muffin mix."
No buttermilk? Stir 1½ tbsp lemon juice or vinegar into 1½ cups milk and let it sit 5 minutes.
Leftovers: split and toast in butter, or crumble into a bowl and pour over cold buttermilk — an old Southern supper.
Make it gluten-free, vegan, or dairy-free
Gluten-free: skip the all-purpose flour and use all cornmeal (a classic Southern move), or swap a 1:1 GF flour blend. It's naturally gluten-free otherwise.
Vegan: use a plant butter; make a "buttermilk" from 1½ cups plant milk + 1½ tbsp lemon juice or vinegar (rest 5 min); and use 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp ground flax + 6 tbsp water, rested). The crumb is a touch more tender but it works.
Dairy-free (not vegan): the same plant-milk buttermilk with regular eggs and plant butter.