To me the best type of dressing for Thanksgiving dinner has cornbread in it. Making cornbread from scratch is one of the easiest things you can bake.
Since making homemade cornbread is so easy, it doesn’t even save you much time or effort if you use a box mix. The biggest difference is the price. At less than a dollar for a box of mix, it is undeniably cheaper than buying all of the ingredients to make cornbread if you only intend to make it one time.
Most of the ingredients are pantry staples, so if you are able to make multiple batches of cornbread with the ingredients you bought, over time it will save you some money to cook it from scratch, too.
Is cornbread an ultra-processed food?
Homemade cornbread is not an ultra-processed food. Cornbread from a box is a completely different story. Here is a list of ingredients for Jiffy brand cornbread:
Wheat Flour, Degerminated Yellow Corn Meal, Sugar, Animal Shortening (Lard, Hydrogenated Lard, Tocopherols Preservative, BHT Preservative, Citric Acid Preservative), Contains Less than 2% of Each of the Following: Baking Soda, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Salt, Wheat Starch, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Tricalcium Phosphate, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, Silicon Dioxide.
Different types of cornbread
When it comes to cornbread, there are a lot of different opinions about what makes something a good cornbread or a bad cornbread. There is also a divide on whether people prefer a sweet cornbread or a savory cornbread. Sweet cornbread is generally considered to be a Northern-style cornbread, and savory cornbread a Southern-style cornbread.
This recipe is for a Southern-style cornbread. If you prefer a sweeter cornbread, just add a bit of sweetener like sugar or honey.
A common feature of Southern cornbread recipes is to use bacon drippings or lard instead of oil. Bacon is frequently considered to be a ultra-processed food, so bacon drippings would be as well.
I listed oil because I think it is generally easier for people to find, but if you have a rendered lard that you want to use, it will work well in this recipe, and is a very traditional thing to use in Southern-style cornbread. Using rendered lard would not be an ultra-processed food, but double check the ingredients if you are using lard you buy from the store.
Products like Crisco, Goya brand manteca which is refined lard, or Armor brand manteca, which is also refined lard are all ultra-processed foods.
You can also substitute the oil with melted butter or ghee.
Skillet Cornbread
It is traditional to make cornbread in a cast iron skillet. Lodge is an economical brand, and their skillets can even be used to cook over a campfire. Be careful using a cast iron skillet in the oven, because they can be heavy to lift and the handles get very hot. You can get silicone covers for the handles to help not get burned.
If you do not have a cast iron skillet, use any oven-safe baking dish that you have.
Baking the Cornbread
Equipment
Cast-iron skillet, or any oven-safe pan or baking dish
Measuring cups and spoons
Ingredients
2 cups buttermilk
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 egg
1/4 cup avocado oil, or cooking oil of choice
2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Put oil in cast-iron skillet and put the skillet in the oven.
In one mixing bowl whisk together all of your dry ingredients. This is the cornmeal, flour, and baking powder.
In the other mixing bowl whisk together all of you wet ingredients. This is you egg and your buttermilk.
Pour the mixture of wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Use your spatula to help you transfer the contents from one bowl into the other.
Being extremely careful, get your hot skillet out of the oven. Remember that the handle on your skillet is too hot to touch without oven mitts.
Carefully pour the hot oil from the skillet into the batter mixture.
Put the skillet down, being careful not to burn your counter top.
Use your spatula to incorporate the oil into the batter.
Pour the batter into the skillet.
Put the skillet into the oven and bake for 20 minutes. If it is not completely done, keep going until it is all toasty looking on top.
I like to eat this cornbread with butter and honey.
Variatons
There are no limits to the different variations that exist for making cornbread. If you are planning to use the cornbread to make into a cornbread dressing, keep it plain.
You can also add whole corn, cheese, diced jalepeños, or diced bell peppers. Anything that sounds good to you.
Ingredient notes:
Buttermilk
Buttermilk is slightly acidic, and will react with the baking powder. I generally use Organic Valley Cultured Buttermilk.
If you do not have buttermilk you can make 1 cup of buttermilk by putting one tablespoon of vinegar in your 1 cup measuring cup, and then filling it to the top with milk. Stir to combine and let sit for a few minutes.
I have heard that it also works to replace the buttermilk with kefir, but I have not tried that yet myself.
Baking Powder
Baking powder is an ingredient that is often confused with baking soda. In the United States the most common brand of baking powder is Clabber Girl, which is sold in small white canisters.
Baking powder works by having a chemical reaction with the acid in the buttermilk which causes small bubbles to form. This helps the cornbread not be too dense. The longer your container of baking powder has been open, the less potent it will be. If you don’t remember when you bought your container of baking powder, you probably need to get a new one.
I do not consider baking powder to be an ultra-processed food because I consider it to be a processed culinary ingredient. Baking powder has been used in home cooking for making foods like biscuits for generations.
If you do consider baking powder to be an ultra-processed food and wish to avoid it, you can try mixing together one half teaspoon cream of tarter and one quarter teaspoon of baking soda to replace the baking powder.
Egg
This recipe uses one regular egg. Do not replace the egg with a product similar to egg beaters if you wish the recipe to remain free of UPF foods.
If you wish to omit the egg, I would substitute the egg with what is referred to as a flax egg. In a small bowl mix together one tablespoon of ground flax seed and three tablespoons of water. Let it sit for a few minutes in the refrigerator to form a gel. Use this instead of the egg.
There are some commercially available vegan egg substitutes. These are almost all going to be ultra-processed foods.Cornmeal
I use finely ground cornmeal. Cornbread is traditionally made using white or yellow cornmeal. You can experiment with using different types of cornmeal and different size grounds for various results.