Imagine a delicious cornbread that requires no baking. Well, you’ve just pictured our super-simple skillet cornbread recipe! It cooks like a super-sized pancake, but it’s cornbread and made right on your stove top. The total prep and cooking time is only 15 minutes, so it’s a nice treat when you or your guests are getting hungry.
Ingredients for Skillet Cornbread
- All-purpose flour: Flour helps the cornmeal stay together. The cornbread could easily crumble without it.
- Cornmeal: Cornmeal makes this a cornbread. Without it, the recipe is closer to a pancake.
- Baking powder: Baking powder is a leavening agent that creates little bubbles in the batter, resulting in a fluffier cornbread.
- Large egg: The egg is a binding agent that helps hold the cornbread ingredients together. It also helps keep the bread from being too crumbly.
- 2% milk: Milk turns the dry ingredients into a batter. Using low-fat milk keeps the calories down. Feel free to use non-dairy or lactose-free milk instead.
- Canola oil: Canola oil helps keep the cornbread moist. Since it’s a light-tasting oil, it won’t affect the flavor of the cornbread.
Directions
Step 1: Combine the cornbread ingredients
Combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk and three teaspoons of the oil, then stir the liquids into the dry ingredients until they’re just moistened.
Step 2: Cook the cornbread
Heat the remaining teaspoon of oil in a heavy 8-inch skillet over low heat. Pour the batter into the hot skillet and cover. Cook the cornbread batter for four to five minutes, then turn it over and cook for another four minutes or until it’s golden brown.
Skillet Cornbread Recipe Variations
- Spice it up: Add diced jalapeno peppers to the batter to spice things up and add specks of color. Most of the jalapeno’s heat is in the seed membrane, so cut that part out and remove the seeds to keep the cornbread from becoming too spicy.
- Get cheesy: Cheddar cheese, anyone? Add a handful or two of shredded cheddar cheese to the batter to make a deliciously cheesy cornbread.
- Make it vegan: Turn this skillet cornbread recipe into a delicious vegan dish by using a store-bought egg replacer or your favorite homemade egg substitute. Use any non-dairy milk such as oat or cashew milk to replace the 2% milk.
How to Store Skillet Cornbread
After the cornbread cools place it in an airtight container or zippered storage bag with the excess air removed for up to three days. Then store it in a dark, dry place like a breadbox or cupboard. Packaged the same way, it’ll keep in the refrigerator for about five days, so that’s a good option if you haven’t finished it all after the second day. (Does that ever happen?)
Can you freeze skillet cornbread?
If you’d like to save your for a much later date, freeze skillet cornbread in zippered freezer bags for up to three months.
Skillet Cornbread Tips
Do I have to use a cast-iron skillet?
This particular recipe works best with a cast-iron skillet, but a large frying pan with a heavy bottom could also work. Avoid using a thin, flimsy pan as the cornbread will likely burn.
Do I have to use canola oil?
Other cooking oils work just as well as canola oil in this cast-iron skillet cornbread recipe, so go ahead and use whatever’s handy. Safflower oil, vegetable oil, sunflower oil or even olive oil may be used as a one-to-one replacement for canola oil. Keep in mind that an oil with a noticeable flavor, such as olive oil, may slightly flavor the cornbread, but in the case of olive oil, that just means an extra level of yumminess.
Should I grease the skillet?
There’s no need to grease the skillet since this is made on the stovetop. The oil added to the skillet just before the batter helps keep the cornbread from sticking.
