11 Reader-Favorite Cornmeal Recipes

Here are your favorite Serious Eats selections featuring this versatile ingredient.

Updated June 19, 2024

blueberry cornbread cobber hero — Serious Eats/Jen Causey

Cornmeal is a must-have in any pantry, as it adds a wonderful flavor and robust texture to many dishes. Here, we've highlighted several of our best cornbread recipes, including fritters, pancakes, casseroles, and a delicious Jamaican cornmeal porridge to round out the collection.

Blueberry Cornbread Cobbler
Serious Eats/Jen Causey
A sweet and jammy offering you'll find yourself coming back to time and time again this summer.
Blueberry Cornbread Cobbler
Southern-Style Unsweetened Cornbread
Serious Eats / Mariel De La Cruz
For many folks, whether living in the South or the Pacific Northwest, this is the One True Cornbread, baked in a preheated cast iron skillet with a batter made from little more than stone-ground cornmeal, eggs, and buttermilk.
Southern-Style Unsweetened Cornbread
Moist and Tender Brown Butter Cornbread
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
Many of us crave the sweeter cake-like style of cornbread prevalent throughout the Northeast and Midwest. To appease Northern palates, try this gilded version of Joshua's basic recipe. Butter is browned in a skillet before the batter is poured in for a nuttier, toastier flavor.
Moist and Tender Brown Butter Cornbread
Grill-Baked Skillet Cornbread
Serious Eats / Lorena Masso
This cornbread achieves a wonderfully smoky and charred flavor by toasting the cornmeal, charring the corn and poblano pepper, and baking directly on the grill.
Grill-Baked Skillet Cornbread
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Scrapple
Serious Eats / Fred Hardy
Whoever first turned cornmeal and butcher's scraps into a breakfast meat deserves a prize of some sort. Rich with pork, this humble Pennsylvania-Dutch specialty is perfect with eggs.
Scrapple
Savory Bacon-Cheddar Pancakes With Corn and Jalapeño
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
Tired of the same old flapjacks? Try frying up some bacon and then adding corn kernels and minced chiles to the pan. Scrape half of the mixture into a cornmeal-buttermilk batter and fold in some cubed cheddar. Before flipping each pancake, spoon some of the remaining bacon-corn-chile mixture on top.
Savory Bacon-Cheddar Pancakes With Corn and Jalapeño
Sweet and Savory Corn Casserole
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
This bubbling skillet is chockfull of fresh corn, cornmeal, and plenty of flavor. Sautéed onion, red bell pepper, cayenne, fresh sage, and shredded cheese make this creamy corn casserole an instant classic.
Sweet and Savory Corn Casserole
Jamaican Cornmeal Porridge With Coconut and Condensed Milks
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Infused with the flavors of nutmeg, vanilla, bay leaf, coconut, brown sugar, and condensed milk, this creamy Jamaican porridge is absolutely delicious.
Jamaican Cornmeal Porridge With Coconut and Condensed Milks
Continue to 9 of 11 below
Buttermilk Hushpuppies
Serious Eats / Yvonne Ruperti
These fried nuggets of cornmeal batter are a Southern classic for a reason. Crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside, they're a perfect barbecue side.
Buttermilk Hushpuppies
Festival (Jamaican Fried Cornmeal Dumplings)
Serious Eats / Karina Matalon
These long, oval-shaped fried dumplings are lighter in texture than hushpuppies. Sporting a crisp, golden crust and a tender, slightly sweet interior, they can be enjoyed as a snack or as an accompaniment to spicy, savory dishes.
Festival (Jamaican Fried Cornmeal Dumplings)
Easy Skillet Tamale Pie With Cornbread Crust
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt
If you're inclined to serve cornbread and chili together, you might be interested in Kenji's take on tamale pie, an American classic that's been around since the 1930s. A spicy filling of ground beef, onion, garlic, scallions, and cheese is topped with brown butter cornbread batter and popped in the oven until golden and crispy around the edges.
Easy Skillet Tamale Pie With Cornbread Crust

11 Reader-Favorite Cornmeal Recipes

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