This Best Ever Easy Cornbread Recipe is so delicious, sweet and moist you can eat it with nothing on it! Serve with stews, chili, soups and more!
I loved drowning my cornbread in syrup until I discovered this easy cornbread recipe. This cornbread is so delicious I can eat it with nothing on it! It is sweet and moist, easy to make and has the best flavor! It’s great to use to make dressing (stuffing) or to serve with stews, soups or chili. It is so good, it will probably become a staple in your home!
Best Ever Easy Cornbread Recipe
- Yield: 9 servings
Ingredients
2 cups baking mix (Bisquick)
1/2 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs
1 cup milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Stir all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.
- Blend until smooth.
- Pour into a greased 8×8 inch baking pan.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
Notes
I like to bake my cornbread in a cast iron frying pan. I grease it with bacon grease and heat the pan in the oven while it is preheating. As soon as it is hot (about 5 minutes of so or the amount of time it takes to mix the batter) I pour the cornbread batter into the pan and bake it.
You can also easily make this easy cornbread recipe into corn muffins by pouring the batter into muffin tins.
This easy cornbread recipe is from Volume 1 of our cookbook:
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I do the same with the cast iron pan, Jill; it’s great that way! But I will try it w/ the bacon grease next time, definitely.
I think you will love the flavor the bacon grease gives it. It doesn’t taste like bacon but just enhances the cornbread flavor. People talk about home cooking and how good their grandma’s things always tasted, well bacon grease is one the the best kept secrets that grandma used and many have completely forgotten about. Bacon grease really was the main type of oil or grease used at all years ago. I use it in my baked beans, fried or scrambled eggs, to fry my pancakes and French toast in, hash browns and fried potatoes and I even use it when I make homemade rolls. An older woman at our church made the best flavored rolls I had ever tasted and I asked her secret. She said when she would put the rolls in the bowl to rise for their first rising she would grease the bowl with bacon grease so the dough wouldn’t stick to the edges of the bowl while rising. It added just the right amount of flavoring.
I loved my grandma’s cooking and bacon grease was her secret as well. She made the best pie crust and always used lard she would also add a scant teaspoon of bacon grease to her pie crusts as she scraped them together (as she called it). It was always just that little extra something even if you couldn’t pick out what that “something” was.
Use cultured buttermilk instead of milk. Will have a richer taste and better texture. This recipe makes a really sweet cornbread based on the amount of sugar in it. The recipe on the Quaker cornmeal box is an excellent alternative. It calls for 1.5 cup AP flour and 3/4 cup of cornmeal. Use 1/3 cup of sugar instead of 1/4 cup as noted on the box. Substitute butter for vegetable oil and use cultured buttermilk. I use a cast iron skillet either with bacon fat or vegetable oil to coat and heat in the oven just like Jill does. I do prefer vegetable oil since my cornbread has a bit of a bacon-y taste.
I use buttermilk in regular cornbread recipes but since I use the Bisquick in this one I don’t usually need to use buttermilk in it because it produces the same affect. More people have Bisquick on hand and it is easier to keep on hand than buttermilk too. I like the sweetness in this cornbread too because with most cornbread recipes they are a little drier then I like and don’t have enough sweetness so I usually have to drown them in syrup when I eat them. This is the only recipe I have that doesn’t need extra something added to it like butter or syrup.
Jill, thank you for sharing that.
You are welcome Rob.
Thank you!
Wow! This is really good if you like sweet cornbread but the corn bread purist may not like it because it is so sweet and cake like (my father-in-law doesn’t like sweet cornbread). I really like sweet cornbread so I loved this and ate too much of it ;)
I am glad to see that I am not the only one who bakes my cornbread in a cast iron frying pan. It just seems to taste better that way. When my kids were home, I often baked it in the oven, then just served it in the pan at the table, for breakfast. I cut it in squares and served it with butter or margarine and pancake syrup.
How many inches is your cast iron pan?
You can do it in about a 10 in pan.
Do you cook it for the same amount of time if using a 10in cast iron skillet?
And I don’t use lard or pork bacon.
I want to use healthier ingredients.
Thanks for the recipe. I will give it a try!!! : )
Yes Sheri you do but of course all ovens are a little different so I usually bake it until it gets a lovely brown on top and if you stick a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean. Actually you might do a little more checking on the healthy ingredients because they have done research and have found that bacon grease and lard is not less healthy than anything else as a matter of fact they say bacon has lots of good nutrients that many are missing in there diets but need.
I haven’t made your recipe yet. I don’t like sweet cornbread with my meals. I see this recipe as more of a dessert. That’s why I marked 4 stars. I totally agree with you about using bacon grease and lard not being less healthy. They’re what I use. I also use real butter and a good olive oil and sometimes coconut oil. My sister would even use olive oil in her cornbread and it was delicious. You just can’t beat these real fat’s when used in cooking certain foods. I still think pie crust is best when made with lard. I’m older and realize that a lot of younger people have never used or heard of using meat grease in cooking. It’s a foreign and strange concept to them. Also, we’ve been told for years that fats, especially meat fats, are so bad for us. Research is finally catching up.
You can just leave the sugar out if you need to.
I made this with gluten free baking mix. It is the closest I can get to my favorite gluten-free cornbread mix which I cannot find anymore. That place where you have to stick a quarter in their carts. I have made it two days in a row, because we have ate it all. It’s delicious!!!!
Thank you Vicki I am so glad you liked it and thanks for letting us know
I just made this cornbread in my cast iron skillet last night and WOW was it good!! I highly recommend making it and sharing it! Everyone that tried it where I work gave it a thumbs up! Thanks so much for posting this!
This recipe is in our cookbook Dining on a Dime and it is one of my favorites too. When I first saw it I wasn’t how good it would be with the Bisquik and all but found really fast it was to die for. I use to put butter and syrup on my cornbread but this is so good and buttery as is I don’t even use butter on it. So glad it worked out for you and you enjoyed it.
Oh one last thing. I sometimes mix up the dry ingredients – several at a time- and put them in a baggie. Then when I want some cornbread quick all I have to do is add the wet ingredients and I am good to go. Makes it as easy as having a box mix on hand.
That sounds really good. I also use a cast iron skillet with bacon grease. I also separate my eggs, add the yolks when it calls for eggs, whip the egg whites and fold them in at the end. It makes a much fluffier cornbread, even when it’s cold.
Have you made this without the sugar in it? I don’t like sweet cornbread but wondered if it would take away from the texture by omitting it.
Thanks~
You’d need to search for recipes designed with no sugar. You can reduce sugar to 1/4 c. It won’t be sweet.
As a Texan, I just had to chime in. This isn’t cornbread, it’s cake. :) In the South, our cornbread contains much more cornmeal in ratio to the flour and there is no sugar. We do bake it in a bacon greased cast iron skillet, now that I can agree with! So yummy that way.
Had to laugh at your comment Aileen. For those of you who don’t know there is a big controversy in the South over using sugar in cornbread etc. It really has quite a history about this very subject. One thing most did always do is they would always cover it up with a ton of syrup or molasses. I love syrup on my cornbread but this recipe is so good I don’t have to use any syrup on it. This recipe is so moist and not dry at all so I really love it.
Our family is from Louisiana and my Mother and grandmother never used any flour or sugar in their cornbread. One thing that they did do was to heat the skillet on top of the stove with some bacon grease in it and then sprinkle lightly with cornmeal before pouring the batter in, makeswonderful crispy crust, always turned the bread out onto a plate with bottom side up. I suppose raising six children on a farm with barely enough money to survive is why they didn’t use flour or sugar in their cornbread as well as why they all moved to California after WWII, where I was born ? To each either own.
This recipe is delicious and we all love it! I followed the recipe exactly except I used 1/4 cup sugar because we don’t like it too sweet but both times it was so fluffy that it crumbles and falls apart. I can’t cut nice squares and I’m not sure where I went wrong
You might try cutting back a little on the bisquick and see if that helps. Different brands of flour and bisquik too can make a difference but I would just cut back on the bisquick.
That is not traditional cornbread. Traditional used only a little flour..cornmeal (white lily) or (Hudson cream) and butter milk and eggs..in a hot skillet rubbed with lard or bacon grease..thats real southern bread..no sugar either.
Not sure why everyone is so upset about whether this is or is not Southern cornbread because I never claimed that it was although after doing much research on it I am wondering if true Southerners really know what real traditional Southern cornbread is because first many who call themselves true Southerners have these ancient recipes that do have sugar in them, most use a hot skillet rubbed with bacon grease and not lard, most use yellow cornmeal but a lot use white corn meal. The history on corn bread is very interesting and I think if most Southerners read it they would be surprised at what they find out. I have also found that people swear theirs is traditional and yet if you drive 100 miles to another community in the South they would have something totally different.
I have tasted Amish potato salad that was really really good but went to Texas, California and Minnesota and tasted the exact same potato salad that was out of this world.
Does it really matter. This is a really really good tasting corn bread recipe. It doesn’t matter if it is from the South, North, East or West it just plain tastes good. Like many things in my life I try not to be prejudice about where it is from. Just because something has the word traditional in front of it doesn’t mean it is better than something else.
Amen, I have to agree.
It’s a FANTASTIC cornbread recipe. It doesn’t matter if it’s traditionally southern or not.
Bottom line is its swert, and it’s delicious.
I live in South Carolina and love a sweet cornbread.
If anyone doesn’t like it sweet, then don’t make.
Thanks for sharing a GREAT recipe.
Thank you Fran. I agree with you completely.
Wow .What a wonderful answer .Not a Southerner but I live in Alabama and love cornbread.I started making mine in mini muffin pans and love that size.
Dining on a dime is a great book.I bought it years ago.
Thank you Annick so much. Yes I love making my cornbread in muffin size too because being by myself I can freeze them and just pop one out when I need it. The muffins seem to stay fresh longer than a square cut from a pan. Mini muffins would be fun too. Will have to try some.
I agree too! Amen to that…I love sweet cornbread and can’t wait to see how mine turns out!! Hate dry unsweet cornbread lol
People stop hating and don’t make it if u don’t like it sweet, as simple as that
Thank you for the recipe!!
Thank you so much Mariely – well said. Never have been able to figure out why people have to be like this and make these types of comments so I really appreciate your comment!
I love the recipie. Can I freeze it after baking it?
Yes you can freeze this
Sounds delicious! Can I use all purpose flour instead of Bisquick? I never use it.
Clarissa the thing is that the Bisquick has things like baking soda, baking powder,shortening etc. – here is a link for our recipe for homemade baking mix and you can see all the things it has in it. Homemade Baking Mix You can try it with the flour the texture may not be the same.
I put a can of whole kernel and half the milk and sub the other half with sour cream. love the way it turned out. so glad I found your recipe!!! I wasn’t a corn bread lover, but Me and my family love it.
This gets 2 thumbs up, yummy, moist. Going to be my go to.
Hi could you reduce the sugar amount ? I dont want it to taste sweet I want it more savory.
Just leave the sugar out – all what sugar is usually in a recipe for most of the time is for sweetening-now I will say it will change the flavor so not sure it will be quite as good or the same
I didn’t have any bacon grease so I just used butter, but this was great! Light and fluffy and just the right amount of sweetness. This is my go to from now on!
I live in South Africa and bisquick and or baking mix is not available could I substitute with self raising flour
Lois it has a little more in it than what self rising flour but here is the recipe for it from our website which you could easily make or get more of an idea of what to use Homemade Baking Mix
I don’t buy the pre-made commercial baking mix any more. Use your recipe and it hasn’t let me down yet.
Thank you Kathryn. This is one of my favorite cornbread recipes too. I usually love syrup on my cornbread but with this recipe I don’t always use it or butter on it because it is so moist and butter alone.
I am making this recipe as I speak at 3:00 a.m. I used my mini cast iron muffin pan and melted bacon fat in it before adding batter. used 1/2 recipe to get 12 mini muffins. Will comment on finished product later.
Can this be baked in a 10” skillet or will it be too thin?
I think a 10″ will be fine.
This was a fabulous cornbread recipe! My husband does not like cornbread due to the grainy texture, but this was nice and fluffy like a biscuit with a mild cornbread flavor. He actually tried it and liked it. I made it in a 9″ cast iron dutch oven and it baked up beautifully. Thank you for the great recipe. This will be my go to for cornbread from now on.
You know Laura I really love this recipe too. I always eat my cornbread with syrup on it because with most recipes it is too dry or something like that but with this one I don’t need to put the syrup on it to taste good it just melts in my mouth. I am so glad your husband likes it too. Oh and if anyone makes cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving or something this would be a good recipe to use for the dressing.
I have tried so many recipes for cornbread and haven’t found any I like. Usually too bitter from baking powder I didn’t like the recipe using a box of cornmeal muffin mix combined with a cake mix. Way too sweet and like cake. This recipe is perfect. I used your homemade bisquick recipe to make these. I’m so glad the search is over. Thank you so much for sharing. Excellent idea to divide the bisquick into bags for making cornbread or muffins
Oh so glad Jacqueline that this recipe worked so well for you. This has been my favorite recipe for cornbread too for many years. Thanks for letting us know.