Easy Homemade Southern Cornbread Muffins
These fluffy homemade Southern cornbread muffins are easy to make from scratch and ready for the oven in under 10 minutes! This recipe yields savory and moist cornbread muffins with just enough sweetness to complement the cornmeal! They’re best served fresh from the oven and are a perfect side dish for chili or or barbecue. Don’t forget to make a batch of these for Thanksgiving too!
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When you think of classic Southern side dishes, cornbread is sure to be near the top of the list! That moist, crumbly, slightly sweet bread is the ideal companion for a hot bowl of turkey chili or a classic Southern meal of pulled pork and fried okra.
I love a big wedge of this cast iron skillet buttermilk cornbread (made with melted butter, buttermilk, and bacon grease).
But homemade cornbread in muffin form is easy to grab for a perfectly portioned serving – essential for potlucks and holidays. And no Thanksgiving spread is complete without a heaping bread basket full of dinner rolls and cornbread muffins!
What Readers Say:
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“Wow! So delicious! My husband said it was the best I ever made (and I’ve made quite a few batches of cornbread over our 36 years of marriage)!! This is now my ‘go to’ cornbread recipe. Thank you!!”
Rose
I hadn’t made these in a while but it’s only because I forgot how stinkin’ easy they are to make! While I love a box of Jiffy cornbread mix, it really takes no time at all to make cornbread muffins from scratch.
The batter takes about five minutes to throw together with the simple of instructions of don’t overmix and don’t overbake. Seriously, don’t overdo or overthink these and they’ll be just fine!
These classic savory cornbread muffins have just enough sweetness to complement the cornmeal. They come out with super high domes, a lovely golden brown exterior, and are moist and airy when you break them open.
Ingredients
These easy cornbread muffins have just 8 simple ingredients. Many ingredients can be swapped out, but this is a great base recipe and is how my mom always made cornbread!
While I do love cornbread made with bacon grease, I’m much more likely to have cooking spray in my pantry. Don’t have to cook bacon? That’s one fewer obstacle between you and a delicious golden cornbread muffin fresh from the oven.
Ingredient substitutions and adjustments
- Buttermilk for milk: You may substitute buttermilk or make a buttermilk substitute. To make “clabbered milk,” start with 1 tbsp white vinegar in your measuring cup, then fill the rest of the cup with milk. Wait about 5 minutes for the milk to sour and curdle a bit. You may also dilute sour cream with milk until it has the consistency of heavy cream.
- Butter for oil: Replace the oil with the same amount of melted butter.
- More or less sugar: For a less sweet cornbread muffin, reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup. For sweet cornbread muffins, increase to 1/2 cup.
- Bacon grease for cooking spray: Grease your muffin tins with bacon grease for extra flavor.
Recipe Variations
This is a great recipe for customizing! Here are a few things you can add into your cornbread muffins to make them your own!
- Cornbread with creamed corn: Add a can of undrained creamed corn to the wet ingredients.
- Jalapeno cornbread muffins: Add 2-3 finely diced, seeded jalapenos. You can use hatch chiles too! Add a cup of shredded cheese for jalapeno cheddar muffins.
- Bacon cornbread: Crumble a few slices of bacon into the batter before mixing, and use the bacon grease to grease the muffin tin.
- Cheesy cornbread: Add 8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese.
- Honey cornbread muffins recipe: Substitute 1/4 cup honey for the sugar.
How to make homemade cornbread muffins
Step one: Mix dry ingredients.
Add cornmeal, flour, salt, and baking powder to a large bowl. Mix well with a whisk.
Step two: Mix wet ingredients.
In a medium bowl, combine egg, milk, and oil.
Step three: Combine wet and dry ingredients.
Add the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Don’t overmix!
Step four: Bake.
Fill a greased muffin tin about halfway with muffin batter, and bake at 400 degrees for 13-17 minutes until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Don’t overbake!
To make mini muffins: Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. This recipe will make about 30-36 mini cornbread muffins.
To make in a cast iron skillet: Heat the empty skillet in your preheated oven for 5-10 minutes. Remove and add 2 tbsp bacon grease or butter and swirl it around until it’s melted and coats the interior of the skillet. Then add your batter and bake for 20-25 minutes. Try my favorite cast iron skillet cornbread recipe here!
Expert Tips for the Best Cornbread Muffins
- Don’t overmix! Overmixing cornbread batter will result in dense, tough cornbread muffins. Mix the batter until just combined: it’s okay if there are some lumps.
- Measuring dry ingredients: Be sure to spoon and level your flour and cornmeal rather than scooping with the measuring cup itself. That means spoon the flour into the measuring cup, then level with the flat of a knife. Scooping with the measuring cup can make the flour more densely packed, giving you too much flour in the recipe.
- Baking powder: For best results, use an aluminum free baking powder (like Rumford). Baking powder that contains sodium aluminum sulfite (like Clabber girl) or using old or expired powder can result in a bitter or metallic taste or flat-topped muffins.
- Baking powder vs. Baking Soda: Using the proper leavening agent is very important! Baking powder and baking soda are not interchangeable: baking soda requires acid to be activated, while baking powder is better for recipes with little to no acid. Once I used 4 teaspoons of baking soda instead of baking powder in this recipe and it looked beautiful but was about the worst thing I’d ever tasted in my life. However, if you’re swapping the regular milk in this recipe for an acidic ingredient like buttermilk or diluted sour cream, you may swap the 4 tsp baking powder for 1 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp baking soda.
What to serve with cornbread muffins
- Serve with big bowl of chili
- Enjoy warm muffins topped with honey butter (or topped with regular butter and a drizzle of honey)
- Crumble into a glass of milk or buttermilk
- Serve alongside pulled pork or other barbecue
- Have as a side for shrimp and grits
More cornbread recipes to try
Easy Homemade Cornbread Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup flour
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
- 1/4 cup corn or vegetable oil
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Add cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder to a large bowl and whisk to break up any clumps.
- Combine egg, milk, and oil in a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
- Pour batter into a greased muffin tin, filling each cup about halfway. Bake for 13-17 minutes or until toothpick stuck in the center comes out mostly clean. Don’t overbake!
- Serve warm with butter and a drizzle of honey, or as a side for chili.
Good texture and didn’t taste bad, it I could taste the baking powder pretty heavily. It is possible I did not mix well enough, but I think it just has a lot of baking powder.
I’m sorry to hear that! The only time I’ve tasted the leavening agent in these is when I accidentally used baking soda instead of baking powder. You could try reducing the baking powder but I’m not sure if they would rise as well. Let me know if you try it!
5 stars! Great recipe – have made twice in past month – perfect each time but have question about size of muffin tin – am using standard sized muffin tin but have had a fair amount of batter left each time. Muffins raise fine, taste great, but am wondering if I should be using a tin for larger sized muffin? Again, great recipe but the left over batter is kind of buggin’ me.
Hi Jennifer, are you using a muffin tin for 6 or 12 standard sized muffins? This recipe should make a dozen and I don’t have any batter left over!
Perfect only made better by grinding my own cornmeal from Orville popcorn. With my Nutri Mill. Ours has always been a jiffy mix too and hubby said it was perfection
Woah fancy with the homemade cornmeal! I bet it was great!
I don’t normally like sweet cornbread but I wanted to make something different for my husband and they were really good. Thank you for the simple, easy and very tasty recipe!
Glad you and your husband liked these! Thanks for sharing!
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It tastes like baking powder
There is way too much Baking powder !!
One time I accidentally made these with baking soda instead of baking powder and they were awful and tasted metallic! But I’ve never had an issue with using baking powder in this recipe. Not sure why yours would have tasted so much like baking powder!
Absolutely too much baking powder. That’s all I could taste. Yuck. Threw out the batch.
Hi Kaylynn, I’d love to help you troubleshoot this recipe. Was your baking powder aluminum-free? Baking powder that contains aluminum can cause a bitter or metallic taste when used in large quantities. Using expired baking powder can also transfer an odd taste, or if you’re at a high altitude you may need to decrease the amount. King Arthur Baking has a handy chart here. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/learn/resources/high-altitude-baking
I agree! Tasted most foul. Threw the batch out.
Added cheese to my last batch of these muffins to go with chilli. Turned out very tasty 😋
Yum, sounds great!
Perfect recipe!!! Extremely easy to prepare and bake, flavour and texture hit the spot while we had these with bbq pork ribs. Thank you for sharing this wonderfully amazing recipe. I added a cup of corn kernels (coz there were some in the fridge) and it worked just as well.
Yum, that sounds like a great meal!
First time making homemade corn bread muffins, these were great 💖
Glad you enjoyed these, thanks for your comment!
Thank you for the recipe! Perfect substitute for Jiffy mix. We added a teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/2 cup of cheddar cheese. We substituted the oil with butter. Thanks again!
Oh wow, I haven’t tried cornbread with cinnamon! Glad you like the recipe, and thanks for the comment!
I’m leaving a 5 star review for the author’s tact and Grace in responding to this review. The recipe looks awesome too.
Thanks so much for your kindness. People aren’t always nice behind the anonymity of the internet, sadly. I hope you’ve had a chance to make the recipe as well!
Made these to accompany a veggie chili I made and they were delicious! Quick, easy recipe and scrumptious! I also subbed almond milk and Bob’s Red Mill GF Flour and they ROCKED!
Yummm sounds like an excellent meal!!
I’m going to make them next week for my husband’s birthday. We are having , jalepeno soup, chicken enchiladas and Mexican rice . First time I’ve made any of this. I usually use the boxed cornmeal muffins but that s not available in Canada, and can’t get back to the States right now. ( COVID ). I will let you know how it goes.
Sounds like a great addition to your husband’s birthday meal! Hope you enjoy them!
Neither spouse, nor teen, realized these weren’t Jiffy which is our go-to. These were easy and delicious. No reason to buy box mix anymore, thanks!
Wonderful, thanks so much for sharing!
These were horrible. One cup of milk? I had to add another one just so I could mix it up. Oil instead of butter? Plain milk instead of buttermilk? And cornbread doesn’t need that much sugar. I’m sorry but I threw this batch out as soon as I tasted it.
Fortunately there are so many recipes on the internet that if you’re specifically looking for one with butter and buttermilk, it’s super easy to find! You might try this recipe I found that includes butter, buttermilk, and less sugar. https://www.thespruceeats.com/cornbread-muffin-recipe-3054141 And I’m sure you’ll find people who like their cornbread more or less sweet than you do – that’s why is great that there are so many choices!
No need to be so rude in your comment.
This recipe is excellent! My husband and I enjoyed these immensely. We had them with chili one night, and fried bass the next. He liked them so much that he requested another batch right after we finished the first batch!
Thanks so much for your comment! I’m glad you and your husband liked this recipe! Stay tuned for another awesome cornbread recipe this weekend, I dare say it might be even better than these muffins!
As rude as Tracy might have been, she’s the most honest. It works with the adjustments though, (I just added more milk). I didn’t have an issue with the sugar, but I’m one with a sweet tooth so I may not be the best judge 🙂
Hey Abby, this cornbread muffin recipe is how my mom made cornbread so I didn’t want to mess with it too much. But I actually have another great recipe now for a buttermilk skillet cornbread that’s to die for! You can find the recipe here: https://www.pinchmeimeating.com/skillet-buttermilk-cornbread/. If you’d like to make it as muffins you can follow the bake time and temp in the cornbread muffins recipe.
Made these for my kid’s lunch box. Added ham, peas, some diced bell pepper and they turned out great! This recipe is definitely a keeper. Thank you!
Sounds like a delicious variation!
I agree ! Tracy was very rude. And Caroline you were very kind. Will be making these with my next pot of chili
Thanks, Karen! I hope you enjoyed them!
Turned out great first time out the chute! Perfect complement for my original navy beans!! Some sliced onion, and we chowed down!! Very easy to go with many dishes!!!!! Thank you and happy Halloween!
So glad y’all liked these muffins! They do go with so many things!
What’s great too is that you know exactly what the ingredients are in these. If you read the corn bread muffin box mix for the ingredients most are things you have no idea what they are and it includes preservatives and food colorings.
Isn’t it great to feel confident about what’s in your food?
It’s been a few year’s since I made cornbread muffins and your recipe was perfect I just happen to have all the ingredients in my kitchen☺ I made them and they cooked to golden perfection….yum yum😄
My granddaughter loved the muffins, I think my daughter ate one or two when she got home last nite😀
Yay! So glad you liked these muffins!
I made these for some hunters that we’re staying at our camp. They loved them and so do I! Perfect touch of sweetness!
So glad y’all enjoyed them! Thanks for commenting!
Corn bread also goes well with buttermilk
Do you crumble your cornbread into the buttermilk and eat it like that?
Love it!
Thanks Barbara!
Fresh cornbread in a glass of buttermilk is pure heaven!!
Yum!
I eat it with milk . Great snack.
One of these days I’ll have to try that!
I do love a good cornbread with my chili! I’ll try out your recipe the next time I make my cornbread stuffing!
Awesome! I hope it works well for you!