The Best Homemade Cornbread Recipe

This is the best homemade cornbread recipe! If you’re wondering how to make cornbread, this recipe is a great one to try. Our family has been enjoying this cornbread recipe for decades and literally hundreds of readers have made and loved this easy recipe. It comes out fluffy and perfect every time!

Our Favorite Homemade Cornbread Recipe

This cornbread has been a staple for my family for years and years, but I realized a while back that I hadn’t created a post to document and share it with you all! My family absolutely loves this cornbread and I’m sure your loved ones will too.

This cornbread is as easy as it gets. No buttermilk needed. Bake it in any pan.

One of the reasons I love this cornbread recipe is that you don’t need anything fancy to make it. Many cornbread recipes require buttermilk or creamed corn or a very specific kind of pan. By comparison, my recipe is one you can make any day, any time, with what you have on hand. You can use any kind of pan and don’t need any special ingredients. With just a few things you probably already have on hand you can make the best cornbread ever!

What Makes this the Best Cornbread?

Well for starters, it tastes DIVINE. It’s sweet but not over the top, soft but not cakey, and crumbly without being a plain mess. I can’t recommend it enough!

Plus, there’s a lot of room to play with the recipe. Use melted butter OR oil, use fine OR medium ground cornmeal, use all-purpose flour OR a white whole wheat flour. Don’t like a sweet cornbread? Feel free to reduce the sugar to as little as 1/4 cup. It’s perfect, the ingredients are simple, AND you can make it your own.

Tips for Making Perfect Cornbread at Home:

• Baking Dish: You can make it in a 9-inch round cake pan, square baking dish, or 9-inch cast iron skillet. Bonus! You can also make these into muffins or double the recipe and toss it in a 9×13-inch baking pan. You’ll just need to adjust the baking time if you are making muffins or doubling the batch. Muffins take around 15 minutes to bake and a doubled recipe takes 35-40 minutes to bake.
• Cornmeal: Use yellow cornmeal in this recipe. White works fine, but it just doesn’t look the same. Golden yellow cornbread is a must. Also, don’t try to sub any of the cornmeals used for making tamales – they are a different grind and the texture doesn’t come out the same.

Topping Ideas for Cornbread

This recipe is great with:

• A drizzle of honey
• Butter
• Honey butter
• Jelly or jam
• Ham and cheese
• If you live someplace where you can get your hands on maple cream, that’s amazing on cornbread too!
• Or just as it is

Serving Ideas for Cornbread

I like to serve cornbread with beans or chili. It goes well with lots of things. My favorite thing is crumbling the cornbread into my chili, mixing it, then sprinkling cheddar cheese on top. So good!

Cornbread Ingredients:

All purpose flour: All purpose flour will allow the bread to rise a bit and give it the spongy, caky consistency of bread.

Yellow cornmeal: A must for cornbread! It give the bread its beautiful golden-brown color and the grainy, delicious consistency.

Granulated sugar: This gives the bread a touch of sweetness it needs to balance out the corn and bread flavors.

Salt: Just a pinch to bring out the complexity of flavors.

Baking powder: To help the dough rise and expand as it bakes.

Butter: This is a must — it gives the bread a moist, flaky, rich flavor that is heavenly.

Egg: This binds everything together and helps the bread to rise.

Milk: For a rich, moist cornbread!

Common Questions About Homemade Cornbread:

What is Cornmeal?

A lot of readers ask about cornmeal. What is cornmeal? What about polenta? It can be confusing. Cornmeal is dried and ground corn. It’s found in the baking aisle of grocery store. Cornmeal is just dried and then ground field corn and you can typically find it in a fine or medium grind. Both will work well for this recipes. Polenta and grits will also work in this recipe. Corn flour is more finely ground and can also be used.

What Can I Substitute for Vegetable Oil in Cornbread?

Another great thing about this particular tried-and-true cornbread recipe is you don’t NEED to use vegetable oil. You can use any mild oil you prefer, like peanut, or even melted butter!

Why is My Cornbread Crumbly?

Ugh, isn’t overly crumbly and dry cornbread just the worst? If you’re experiencing just a little bit of crumble, that’s normal. It shouldn’t be true quick bread consistency, but it also shouldn’t be totally dry and feel like wet sand. Using too much cornmeal is one way to dry it out, so don’t skip out on the equal portion of flour.

What Should I Serve With Cornbread?

A lot of people love to pair cornbread with chili… for the obvious reasons (it’s amazing). But I love cornbread with so many other meals, too! It’s great with all kinds of barbecue or grilled meats. Its subtle sweetness makes it a great accent for spicy and meaty foods.

What is the ideal cornbread texture?

This recipe is perfect because it makes a delectable texture: spongy, moist, and soft, and just crumbly enough to sprinkle crumbs over chili. It’s buttery and rich with just the right amount of sweetness.

How to Make this Cornbread Gluten Free

Yes! I have made this recipe gluten free by simple swapping out the all purpose flour for a gluten free baking blend (often labeled 1:1 gluten free baking blend) and it worked perfectly. This truly is the best cornbread recipe! It can be whatever you need it to be and still come out amazing.

How to Make Homemade Cornbread

Okay, now let’s get to the subject of this post: how to make homemade cornbread! You may be surprised to discover that baking a perfect pan of cornbread only requires a few easy steps:

1. Grease a 9-inch round cake pan or cast iron skillet well and set aside. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, add the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Whisk to combine well.
3. Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients and add your oil or butter, milk, and egg. Stir just until the mixture comes together and there are only a few lumps remaining.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is a deep golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
5. Serve hot.

See! It’s that easy. I love a side that comes together in a snap and is on the table in about 30 minutes.

Watch my video showing you how to make this easy cornbread recipe here:

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More Cornbread Recipes:

• Sour Cream Cornbread
• Skillet Cornbread
• Sweet and Creamy Cornbread
• Whole Grain Cornbread
• Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins
• Homemade Cornbread Muffins

Easy dinner recipes to serve your cornbread with:

• Classic Ham and Bean Soup (Instant Pot or Slow Cooker recipe)
• Hearty 15 Bean Soup in the Instant Pot
• Slow Cooker Pork Tenderloin and Potatoes
• Easy Slow Cooker Chili
• Quick and Easy Chili Recipe