Jalapeño Cornbread

There’s no better comfort food than a piece of sweet and spicy crumbly jalapeño cornbread to go with your favorite bowl of soup or chili!

Cornbread is one of my favorite types of bread because it’s extremely easy to make, and it pairs well with so many foods. It goes perfectly with some chorizo chili, pinto bean soup, or chipotle sweet potato pork chili.

Jalapeño Cornbread Ingredients

This cornbread uses staple pantry ingredients, making it a quick and easy recipe for any weeknight dinner. Here’s what you’ll need:

• Creamed corn: Instead of using just corn kernels, use cream-style corn to get the right creamy consistency.
• Sharp cheddar cheese: I like to add sharp cheddar cheese for extra flavor, but pepper jack, Colby jack, or Monterey Jack cheeses are good alternatives.
• Jalapeños: I remove the seeds and dice the peppers to get a lot of the pepper flavor with only a little spice. If you really want to turn up the heat, keep the seeds in.
• Yellow corn meal: This helps give cornbread that great crumbly texture.
• Flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt: Your staple dry ingredients.
• Oil, milk, eggs, and unsalted butter: Your staple wet ingredients. Make sure to use unsalted butter so the cornbread doesn’t come out overly salty.

How to Make Jalapeño Cornbread

1. Preheat: Place a 9- or 10-inch cast iron skillet in the oven, turn it on, and preheat to 400°F.
2. Mix dry ingredients: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix wet ingredients: In a separate medium bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, melted butter, and cream-style corn.
4. Combine: Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir together until well combined.
5. Fold: Fold in the shredded cheese and diced jalapeños until just combined.
6. Bake: Carefully remove the hot cast iron skillet from the oven and add the oil or butter to grease the skillet. Pour the batter into the skillet, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Is This Jalapeño Cornbread Spicy?

This cornbread has a mild-medium heat, but It really depends on how you prepare the jalapeños.

• To make it less spicy, remove and discard all the seeds and veins from the jalapeños before dicing them.
• To make it more spicy, you can leave in the seeds of the jalapeños, or use a spicier pepper like serranos instead.
• If you don’t want any spice at all, you can omit the jalapeños all together and just have a regular cornbread or use green bell peppers instead.

Jalapeño Cornbread Muffins

If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet or you want to make this into individual servings, you can! Here’s how to bake this in a 12-count muffin tin:

Preheat oven to 375°F and spray the inside of each well with cooking spray, grease with oil, or line with nonstick cupcake liners. Make the batter as instructed above, then pour it evenly into each well. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Serving Suggestions

I like to serve my jalapeño cornbread with pat of butter, or a drizzle of honey for a little extra sweetness. Here are some other dishes that I like to serve it with:

• Borracho Beans (Frijoles Borrachos)
• Charro Beans
• Chipotle Pumpkin Turkey Chili
• Black Bean Soup