Best Cornbread Recipe
Posted Oct 07, 2020, Updated Sep 18, 2023
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The best cornbread recipe you’ll ever eat! It’s sweet and moist with a beautiful crumb, and has bursts of fresh corn in every bite. Plus this Homemade Cornbread is easy to make in 30 minutes – no mixer required.
Cornbread is the perfect companion to so many fall meals, chili (beef chili, chicken chili, turkey chili, etc), soups, etc. and it’s also a delicious holiday side dish.
This is the best cornbread recipe you’ll ever eat! It’s sweet and moist with a beautiful crumb, and has bursts of fresh corn in every bite. Plus this Homemade Cornbread is easy to make in 30 minutes – no mixer required.
Homemade Cornbread Recipe: Ingredients & Substitutions
As always, I recommend making this cornbread recipe exactly as it’s written for the best results, but we’ll chat about the ingredients and possible substitutions.
- Yellow Cornmeal. White cornmeal can be used in place of yellow, the final result will just have a different color.
- All-Purpose Flour. To make this cornbread recipe gluten-free, you can substitute an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend for the all-purpose flour. Bread flour and cake flour also work well.
- Salted Butter. Unsalted butter can be used in place of salted butter.
- Whole Milk. Fat content is important for the this homemade cornbread. You could use 2% milk, or half and half, but I don’t recommend other substitutions.
- Sour Cream. Again, full-fat is best. Greek yogurt can be used in place of sour cream.
- Granulated sugar and honey. I don’t recommend making substituions for the granulated sugar or honey. If you don’t love sweet cornbread you can reduce the amount of sugar but that is all I would recommend.
- Corn. Feel free to use fresh corn (cooked) from the Cobb or frozen and thawed corn.
How to make Cornbread
People often wonder “How do you make cornbread from scratch?” Well you’re in luck because we’re going to walk through how to make cornbread step-by-step to ensure your success! And don’t forget to watch the video!
Combine the dry ingredients
In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (but not the sugar) and sea salt, then set the bowl aside.
Whisk together wet ingredients
In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter sugar and honey, making sure the sugar is completely dissolved. Add, milk, sour cream and eggs and whisk until smooth.
Combine Wet & Dry ingredients
Next, add the dry ingredients to the whisked wet ingredients and stir/whisk until mixture is smooth.
Add Corn
Fold in corn kernels, gently stirring until they are evenly distributed throughout the cornbread batter.
Bake
Pour the cornbread batter into a prepared baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes or until the top is set, lightly golden-brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Serve!
Cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Then serve warm with a generous slather of this cinnamon honey butter.
Store
Store any leftover cornbread in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 5 days. You can also use it to make the best cornbread croutons or this cornbread dressing!
How to freeze cornbread:
Let the cornbread cool completely. Slice into individual servings and store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. If you plan on freezing it for a while, I recommend also tightly wrapping each slice of cornbread in plastic wrap before putting it in an airtight container.
What to serve with cornbread:
Here are some of our favorite recipes to enjoy with this homemade cornbread.
- CHILI! We love chili around here, beef chili, turkey chili and chicken chili are all great companions for this honey cornbread recipe.
- Soup. this butternut squash soup tastes amazing with a side of this honey cornbread, also try this vegetable soup, beef and barley soup, and this chicken and rice soup!
- This slow cooker pot roast is a great main dish to serve with this sweet cornbread.
- And of course, serve it as a side amongst all your favorite Thanksgiving Recipes.
- Serve it as a Thanksgiving or holiday side dish alongside this Roast Turkey and the best Turkey Gravy!
Recipe FAQs
This recipe makes very moist cornbread, if it turns out dry it’s likely that it was over-baked. Next time, shorten the baking time and be sure to use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is heating to the proper temperature.
This recipe calls for yellow cornmeal, but white can be used as well it will just have a different color.
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Best Homemade Cornbread Recipe
Ingredients
- ¾ cup yellow cornmeal
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp fine sea salt
- ½ cup salted butter melted
- 1 cup whole milk
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 2 eggs
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup honey
- 1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels thawed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees f. Grease a 9×9” square baking dish, set aside. (Note, you can use an 8×8” baking dish, you will need to bake a touch longer).
- In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sea salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter sugar and honey.
- Add, milk, sour cream and eggs and whisk until smooth.
- Add dry ingredients and stir/whisk until mixture is smooth.
- Fold in corn kernels.
- Pour into prepared baking dish.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the top is set, lightly golden-brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.
- Cool for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Video
Notes
Ingredient Substitutions
- Yellow Cornmeal. White cornmeal can be used in place of yellow, the final result will just have a different color.
- All-Purpose Flour. To make this cornbread recipe gluten-free, you can substitute an all-purpose gluten-free flour blend for the all-purpose flour. Bread flour and cake flour also work well.
- Salted Butter. Unsalted butter can be used in place of salted butter.
- Whole Milk. You could use 2% milk, or half and half, but I don’t recommend other substitutions (with lower fat content)
- Sour Cream. Full-fat is best. Greek yogurt can be used in place of sour cream.
- Granulated sugar and honey. I don’t recommend making substituions for the granulated sugar or honey. If you don’t love sweet cornbread you can reduce the amount of sugar but that is all I would recommend.
- Corn. Feel free to use fresh corn (cooked) from the Cobb or frozen and thawed corn.
Store
Store any leftover cornbread in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 5 days.How to freeze cornbread:
Let the cornbread cool completely. Slice into individual servings and store in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 months. If you plan on freezing it for a while, I recommend also tightly wrapping each slice of cornbread in plastic wrap before putting it in an airtight container.Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Ok so I’m a pretty good cook/ baker. I’ve just deleted all other recipes for this corn bread recipe. I was looking for a go to recipe with all the ingredients important to me. Didn’t change a thing. My spread of choice is just honey mixed with butter. Oh sorry only had an 8×8 pan it took 37 minutes and golden brown and moist! Thank you!
I’ve made a lot of cornbread recipes over the years, and this is my favorite by a country mile. The only change I make is to brown the butter (it’s worth the extra 3 minutes), and only use corn if it’s in season (fresh). It’s got the perfect texture, moisture, and sweetness for me. Thanks for sharing!
Can I use light brown sugar ? Thank you !
This was amazing. I used the doubled recipe. Added 1/2 tsp salt to make up for the fact I used unsalted butter. Baked in 9x 12 (I think) baking dish. Fresh sweet corn from the farmers market. Spectacular.
Fluffy Golden Goodness. It was like
cake-cobbler-cornpudding-cornbread
All-In-1. Very Delicious. I replaced the sour cream for .4oz activia yogurt because that’s all I had. I 3/4 cup sugar and used unsalted butter.
Moist and delicious, and my husband agrees! This is now my go-to cornbread recipe!