Cast iron skillet Southern cornbread made with buttermilk and stone-ground cornmeal.

Real Southern Cornbread

What's the fastest way to stir up a hissy fit among Southerners?

Say to them "a real Southerner would never ... [fill in the blank]," that's how.

I hear it sometimes on social media about my own personal recipes because there are some folks who have set in their heads that to be "Southern," a recipe must be prepared a certain way - the way that they grew up with it being prepared, and only that way.

Hand-formed pones of dense and sturdy fried cornmeal patties, a perfect companion for a bowl of greens and pot likker.

Corn Dodgers

If you look up corn dodgers on the internet, you'll find a huge variety of recipes that may differ significantly from one another.

I suppose that's true of a lot of dishes in Southern cooking - like corn casseroles for instance. In truth, it really all depends on one thing, and one thing only.

What you grew up with and how your Mama cooked things!

CWC'S Mighty Fine Cornbread, My Way

A tender cornbread made using self-rising cornmeal and flour with butter and buttermilk, based on Cooking with Cajun's famed cornbread.

Mighty Fine Cornbread

Just like everybody else, when I have a minute (or more like I'm trying to avoid work ssshh...) I get lost in shorts and reels on social media. For me, mostly that's videos of gorgeous strutting Maine Coon cats, rehabilitating horses and other rescued animals, goofy stunts people actually do, food videos and viral recipe hacks.

There is a fella with a page called Cooking with Cajun. Originally from South Central Louisiana around the Atchafalaya swamps, but a resident of the Ozark mountain region of North Arkansas since 2015, where he pretty much lives off the grid. He has an outdoor cooking set up where he cooks everything over open fire and he does an incredible job doing it too. You'll find him everywhere - Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube - check him out sometime!

An enhanced sweet cornbread that starts with Jiffy mix.

Hacked Jiffy Cornbread

I started this recipe website Deep South Dish back in 2008, when there really weren't many food blogs, much less many focused in any manner on southern cooking. Boy has that changed and talk about competitive!

There are now some very ambitious and focused 30-somethings out there and hey, I'm super proud of them. Support them please! They are hard workers.

On the other hand, me, I'm just a home cook, twice their age, sharing my recipes and just a tiny little bit outside of that league, so a special shout out to those of you who have been here and supported me and my old-school ways and recipes from the beginning. I love y'all!

Hot water cornbread is a fried cornbread, tender on the inside, thanks to a precook of the cornmeal with boiling water, and crispy on the outside from a quick fry in a blazing hot cast iron skillet.

Hot Water Cornbread

What sets this fried cornbread apart from its cornbread cousins, is the boiling water, giving the meal a head start on cooking and resulting in an inner creamy texture, with an outside crunchy crust.

Goes well with chili, beans and southern peas, though I'll be honest with you. I can make a meal from a plate of them!

Chile Cheese Tex-Mex Cornbread

Easy to make, this tender and moist Mexican Cornbread brings a sweet heat to those Tex-Mex and Mexican meals, soups, stews and chili dishes. 

Mexican Cornbread

I know for a southerner it's likely to sound a little sacrilegious, but we aren't super huge on cornbread down here along the Gulf Coast. 

Sure, we eat it and we enjoy it, but French bread and yeast rolls are much more prevalent down here. Because of that, we don't necessarily subscribe to the idea that there is only one way to make cornbread, and, we don't even mind, if occasionally, it's got a little sweetness to it. I know. I can hear the gasps.

Buttermilk cornbread made with cheese, jalapenos, corn kernels and honey and finished with a honey butter glaze.

Honey Jalapeno Cornbread

I made a pot of taco soup on Saturday. The weather was overcast and cloudy, dreary really... the kind of weekend weather that just makes you want to nap all day. Or get in the kitchen and cook something.

A basic recipe for buttermilk corn muffins.

Basic Buttermilk Corn Muffins

Sometimes you just want your cornbread in convenient little packages with crispy edges all around, rather than just a slice cut off of a pan, and corn muffins are just one of many ways to get that. There are quite a few specialty pans you can buy for this these days, but most everybody already has a muffin tin, making it the most convenient delivery system for these little bites of cornbread.

Cornbread made with buttermilk, sour cream and creamed corn.

Buttermilk Sour Cream Cornbread

The cornbread that most of our grandmothers made was fairly straight forward - not much more than cornmeal, a leavening of some kind, a little salt, and some kind of fat which might be lard, or bacon drippings or even the addition of an egg, but often not.

Sometimes there would even be a touch of buttermilk, but not always.

The majority of the time, I keep my cornbread pretty simple too, but every once in awhile I do like a change, usually depending on what I'm serving, and this sour cream cornbread has been a reliable recipe handed down for years.

A delicious salad made using crumbled cornbread and a variety of vegetables, mixed with a mayonnaise and sour cream Ranch dressing and garnished with a little crumbled cornbread, bacon, tomatoes, green onion and parsley. A great addition to your next potluck or party!

Cornbread Salad

I confess. Cornbread salad is not something that many of us grew up knowing about here in South Mississippi, but ever since learning about it a couple years back from Tommie, a dear friend from Oklahoma, I have wanted to give it a try.

While I do think it's more common over that way, Cornbread Salad seems to be making its way across the whole of the South more so these days.

I admit, it does come off sounding an odd contrast of textures, but so many people who are familiar with it seem to love it, so hey, I'm game for anything!

A classic southern recipe, cornmeal hoecakes are little pan fried cornmeal medallions that are at home as breakfast, as much as they are as a side dish with a mess o' greens, and just about anything else!

Fried Cornbread - Southern Cornmeal Hoecakes

Fried cornbread, is also known as cornmeal hoe cakes and corn cakes, and sometimes Johnnycakes, is a sort of fried cornmeal flatbread - kind of like if you took cornbread batter and skillet fried it like a pancake. The inside puffs up like cornbread, while the outside gets nice and crispy from frying it in the oil. It's the perfect companion to a mess o'greens, or for breakfast or as a sweet treat when drizzled with a bit of syrup.

Corn spoon bread goes by a number of names, but it's basically a souffle made of cornmeal, corn, sour cream, milk, eggs and butter. A wonderful side dish for any holiday.

Corn Spoon Bread

Corn Spoon Bread, is an old fashioned dish that has been around since the establishment of the colonies, and goes by many names these days - Corn Casserole, Corn Pudding, Corn Spoon Bread, to name a few - though all of those actually started out as completely separate recipes. Pretty much they all now represent a single dish similar to this one.

All controversy aside on preferred ingredients for cornbread, in my mind there really is only one thing that truly sets southern cornbread apart. It's always best cooked in a screaming hot, cast iron skillet.

Southern Skillet Cornbread

Skillet cornbread is a southern staple. Baked in a preheated, sizzling hot oiled cast iron skillet, it produces a beautiful crunchy crust on the bottom, and that is what makes it so unique. But cornbread in The South can certainly be cause for debate, that's for sure.

Did you know that these simple fried balls of cornmeal and flour were actually born out of leftover fish fry coating? We tend to do them a little more on purpose these days and there are many add-ins to make them a stand-out.

Hushpuppies

Have I mentioned I love using a deep fryer?

No, of course I don't use one every day, or even every week for that matter - nobody should. By the way, there is some preconceived notion across this fine country of ours, that we Southerners deep fry or smother everything in heavy layers of cheese. We don't.

Okay, there are some who do, but they are not the majority. However, when frying some foods in oil, deep frying is the more perfect solution and heads above better than pan frying. Food is quickly cooked in a deep fryer with much less absorption of oil than pan frying.