Cornbread Muffins

Cornbread muffins are a tender, moist, and versatile cornbread alternative for a spicy chili, as a stand-alone snack with honey and butter, or to bring to a barbecue.

The recipe is fast and simple. It uses cornmeal, flour, milk, eggs, sugar, and olive oil to create a perfectly moist and fluffy interior and a beautifully golden exterior.

Originally a Southern comfort food, their convenient individual serving size and perfect balance of sweet and savory flavor made them a staple of American cuisine.

Cornbread muffins are so easy to make!

The ingredients are simple: cornmeal, all-purpose flour, sugar, egg, olive oil or melted butter, your milk of choice, baking powder, and a pinch of salt.

You’ll love their perfectly balanced savory and sweet flavor, tender and moist crumb, and versatility.

Like cornbread, they are excellent with a hearty lentil chili, vegetarian chili, or sweet potato chili.

They are also perfect with a cozy lentil stew, chickpea stew, and African peanut stew.

The sweet, nutty flavor of corn goes incredibly well with butternut squash soup, sweet potato soup, and carrot ginger soup.

If you serve them next to mashed potatoes, don’t forget to drizzle them with creamy mushroom gravy.

And you can use leftovers to make a holiday-friendly cornbread stuffing.

Quantities are in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

Cornmeal: We tested P.A.N. Cornmeal, Bob’s Red Mill, or Goya. If you like a deep golden color, go for yellow cornmeal.

All-purpose flour: You can substitute bread flour for all-purpose.

Sugar: You can use white or brown sugar.

Olive oil: You can substitute avocado oil, sunflower oil, or canola oil for olive oil.

Egg: The egg helps to bind the cornbread muffins. Use our vegan cornbread recipe to make vegan cornbread muffins.

Milk: You can use any milk, such as almond milk, oat milk, or other.

Baking powder

Add-ins: We add walnuts. Substitute dark chocolate chips, pecans, or cranberries for walnuts.

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C. Line your muffin pan with muffin liners.

To a large mixing bowl, add cornmeal, all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

Stir to combine, then pour in the milk, egg, and olive oil and whisk until well combined.

Now, you can fold in your favorite add-ins (we use crushed walnuts), then transfer the batter into the muffin liners with a spoon.

Tip: We usually make 10 muffins with this recipe, but you can make up to 12 smaller ones.

Bake for 20 to 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly dry.

It’s hard to resist serving warm cornbread muffins with honey and butter. For vegans, try maple syrup and non-dairy butter.

You can also serve them instead of cornbread. What we like is that they are cute single portions.

Their balanced sweet and savory flavor makes them ideal as a side dish for holiday meals with earthy recipes like a lentil loaf, mushroom Wellington, stuffed butternut squash, mashed sweet potatoes, and mushroom gravy.

They are also excellent next to soups, chilis, and stews such as black bean soup, vegetarian chili, and sweet potato soup.

Storage

Make ahead: Cornbread muffins are excellent for meal prep as they stay moist and tender for several days. They are also easy to bring to picnics and potlucks.

Room temperature: Keep them in a plastic bag for up to 5 days.

Freezer: Let them cool down, put them in a freezer-friendly bag, and freeze for 3 months.

Thaw and reheat: You can defrost them at room temperature or in the microwave. We recommend reheating them for a few seconds in the microwave, and they’ll be as good as freshly baked.

EASY MUFFIN RECIPES: easy apple muffins, vegan blueberry muffins, sweet potato muffins, vegan pumpkin muffins, vegan apple muffins, lemon muffins.

CORN RECIPES: corn tortillas, black bean salad, vegan cornbread, tostadas, quinoa salad.

Breakfast

Vegan Apple Muffins

Breakfast

Sweet Potato Muffins

Salads

Black Bean Salad

Salads

Quinoa Salad