Southern Cornbread Sticks (with Video)

Southern Cornbread Sticks are crispy on the outside and moist and tender on the inside. They are a snap to make and are perfect with soups and stews. They are also delicious on their own. What's even better is that they are just as good the next day when reheated.

Jump to:

• Southern versus Northern Cornbread
• Ingredients: Here's What You'll Need
• Combining the Wet Ingredients
• Combining The Dry Ingredients
• Steps in Making the Southern Cornbread Sticks
• Recipe Questions
• Recipe Tips and Tricks
• What to Serve with Southern Cornbread Sticks
• Other Cornbread Recipes
• Recipe

Southern versus Northern Cornbread

Both southern and northern cornbread are made with cornmeal. Other than that, the two types of cornbread tend to be different regarding whether flour and sugar are added to the batter.

Southern cornbread is typically made with little or no flour, while northern cornbread is made with equal parts of cornmeal and flour. This gives northern cornbread more of a cake-like texture.

In addition, southern cornbread generally contains little or no sugar. This allows the corn taste to shine through. On the other hand, Northern cornbread tends to include a fair amount of sugar, resulting in a much sweeter cornbread. The preference between southern and northern cornbread often boils down to personal taste.

Ingredients: Here's What You'll Need

This recipe uses simple ingredients for these delicious cornbread sticks, inspired by a recipe on the Genius Kitchen site.

• Wet Ingredients: For the wet ingredients, you'll need unsalted butter, buttermilk, and an egg.

• Dry Ingredients: The dry ingredients include yellow cornmeal, all-purpose flour, Kosher salt, baking soda, and a touch of cayenne pepper. You can certainly omit the cayenne pepper if you want or increase the amount.

Combining the Wet Ingredients

1. First, I melted the butter in the microwave. Then, I added the buttermilk. Because the buttermilk was cold, the butter somewhat solidified. Therefore, I heated the butter/buttermilk mixture in the microwave for about 45 seconds to warm it a bit. I didn't want to heat it too much - just enough to remelt the butter.

2. After that, I added the egg and whisked everything together.

Combining The Dry Ingredients

For the dry ingredients, I whisked together the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, and cayenne pepper in a medium bowl until everything was well combined.

Steps in Making the Southern Cornbread Sticks

1. First, I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Then, I stirred everything together, just until the ingredients were combined. I didn't want to overmix the batter.

2. When the batter was ready, I placed the cast iron cornstick pan into a preheated 450° F oven for about 5 minutes until it was hot.

3. Next, I removed the pan from the oven and brushed it with a little vegetable oil.

3. After that, I added the batter to the hot pan using an ice cream scoop.

4. I popped the pan into the 450° F oven for 18 minutes. After 18 minutes, the cornbread sticks were golden brown and perfectly cooked.

I removed the pan from the oven. Then, I let the cornbread sticks cool for about 5 minutes before removing them from the pan. I repeated this with the remaining batter.

I ended up with 12 absolutely delicious Southern Cornbread Sticks. They were crispy on the outside and tender and moist on the inside. Yum!

Recipe Questions

Recipe Tips and Tricks

• This recipe works best with buttermilk. However, you can make your own if you don't have any. Add one tablespoon and one teaspoon of fresh lemon juice or distilled white vinegar to a measuring cup, and add enough milk to reach 1 ¼ cups. Let the mixture sit for about 5 minutes, and you have buttermilk!

• When the melted butter is combined with the cold buttermilk, it starts to solidify. I generally heat the butter/buttermilk mixture in the microwave for about 45 seconds. This is enough heat to somewhat remelt the butter but not impact the addition of the egg to the batter.

• I use a jumbo cookie scoop to measure out the batter. The scoop holds approximately two tablespoons of batter and is equivalent to a number 30 commercial scoop. You could also use a spoon if you don't have a scoop.

What to Serve with Southern Cornbread Sticks

Southern cornbread sticks go perfectly with many different soup and stew recipes like the following:

Other Cornbread Recipes

If you like cornbread, you should also try these delicious recipes:

Recipe