North America → United States → Lowcountry (South Carolina)
🥔 SIDE
Southern Skillet Cornbread
Unsweetened buttermilk cornbread poured into a smoking-hot, bacon-greased cast-iron skillet and baked until the crust crackles, the side for greens, beans and barbecue.
American (Southern) · easy · serves 8
prep 10 min · cook 25 min
~183 cal · 6g protein · 31g carbs · 5g fat · 2g fiber · 3g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Cornbread began with the Native peoples of the Americas, who were grinding and baking corn thousands of years before Europeans arrived, and it became the everyday bread of the American South, where the heat and humidity made wheat hard to grow. African American, Native and European cooks all shaped it, and by the nineteenth century buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and rendered pork fat had turned the old corn and water cakes into the bread eaten today.
Traditional Southern cornbread has no sugar and little or no wheat flour; both crept into most recipes only in the twentieth century, and the sweet, cake-like version is still thought of in the South as a Northern habit. Here it is just cornmeal, buttermilk, an egg, leavening and salt.
The crust is the point. A cast-iron skillet with a spoonful of bacon drippings goes into the oven until it is smoking hot, and the batter hisses as it hits the pan. It comes out with a crisp, brown, crackling shell and a tender, crumbly middle, and is cut into wedges to eat with collard greens, beans, pot likker, chili or barbecue.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten- and nut-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
- 3 tbsp bacon drippings
- 2 cups (about 280 g) stone-ground cornmeal, white or yellow, buy one labelled gluten-free if you avoid gluten
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 1 egg, large
Instructions
- 1Put the bacon drippings in a 25 cm (10 inch) cast-iron skillet, set it in the oven and heat the oven to 220C (425F), so the skillet heats with it for at least 10 minutes.✎ Chef’s noteThe skillet must be smoking hot when the batter goes in. That is what makes the crackling crust.
- 2Whisk the cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In another bowl whisk the buttermilk and egg.
- 3Stir the buttermilk mixture into the cornmeal just until combined. Carefully take the skillet out, swirl the fat around the sides, then pour most of the hot fat into the batter and stir it in quickly.
- 4Pour the batter into the hot skillet; it should sizzle. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean.
- 5Turn the cornbread out onto a board or serve it from the skillet, cut into wedges while hot, with butter, and alongside greens, beans, chili or barbecue.
Southern United States home tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Lowcountry (South Carolina). The South Carolina Lowcountry cooks Gullah-rooted rice culture, shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, and Hoppin' John. African and coastal Southern traditions meet over the tidal marsh.
🗺️
United States. American cooking is regional and migration-shaped, Lowcountry shrimp and grits, Tex-Mex, New England seafood, Cajun gumbo, and Californian produce. Indigenous, African, European, Latin, and Asian traditions collide into a constantly reinventing national table.
🌍
North America. Almost every regional cooking here records who arrived and on what terms. Enslaved West Africans brought rice, okra, black-eyed peas and the techniques behind Lowcountry and Creole food; Chinese railway labour and later Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Vietnamese arrivals built the way the cities eat; and Indigenous foodways sit underneath all of it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Skillet or frying pan, Oven, Grill or barbecue, Whisk.
Storing it: Best the day it is made. Wrap well and refresh in a warm oven, or freeze and reheat straight from frozen.
Make it a United States meal
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Frequently asked questions
What is Southern Skillet Cornbread?
Unsweetened buttermilk cornbread poured into a smoking-hot, bacon-greased cast-iron skillet and baked until the crust crackles, the side for greens, beans and barbecue.
Where does Southern Skillet Cornbread come from?
Southern Skillet Cornbread is an American (Southern) dish from Lowcountry (South Carolina), United States.
Can Southern Skillet Cornbread be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Southern Skillet Cornbread recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Southern Skillet Cornbread safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Southern Skillet Cornbread take to make?
About 35 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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