Fresh corn is roasted with spicy jalapeño and white onion before swirling into a bacon studded cornbread batter. Shreds of Monterey jack melt atop this skillet jalapeño bacon cornbread for a cheesy, gooey finish.
Today, August 1, traditionally marks the start of Lughnasadh, the ancient festival of the harvest. A celebration of bountiful crops, abundant fields, and the culmination of a season's worth of collaborative efforts, at last coming to fruition.
While most of us don't have fields of grain to harvest or bumper crops to process for winter (save for the world's happiest chives in my balcony herb planter and hopefully a tomato or two!), the spirit of the harvest is still something worth embodying.
This roasted jalapeño bacon cornbread feels an especially fitting way to do so. Loaded with fresh corn kernels, sultry jalapeños, and smoky bacon, it's a culmination of flavors that have been slowly developing all season long.
Baked in a hefty skillet, this recipe yields a bountiful pile of thick, boldly flavored cornbread squares. Perfect for sharing with friends and savoring summer!
ingredients for skillet jalapeño bacon cornbread
ingredient notes & swaps
- Feel free to adjust the quantity of jalapeño pepper to make your jalapeño cornbread less (or more!) spicy. Keep in mind that the spice level of fresh chili peppers like jalapeños can vary widely from one to the next. I made the batch of cornbread pictured here with three whole peppers and you could hardly taste them. For guaranteed heat, leave the seeds and white membrane in the peppers when you dice them.
- Most recipes out there use cheddar cheese for a jalapeño bacon cheddar cornbread, but I prefer the more mild flavor and seamless melt-ability of Monterey jack cheese. Get it in block form and grate it yourself; the shreds of cheese will melt more smoothly and give you some high quality cheese pulls when you go to slice your cornbread apart!
- Getting the right mixture of cornmeal and all-purpose flour is key to achieving a cornbread with balanced flavor and sturdy texture. Lots of other bakers swear by an equal parts ratio, but this recipe nudges that cornmeal proportion up juuust a bit, to keep the emphasis firmly on the corn instead of letting it drift into cakey / bread territory.
- Why the sour cream and the buttermilk? Though they taste really similar, sour cream is a high-fat cultured milk product while buttermilk is low in fats. They work together to make your bacon cheese jalapeño cornbread moist and tender, while the acidity also helps to activate the leavening agents.
skillet jalapeño bacon cornbread recipe
Fresh corn is roasted with spicy jalapeño and white onion before swirling into a bacon studded cornbread batter. Shreds of Monterey jack melt atop this skillet jalapeño bacon cornbread for a cheesy, gooey finish.
- Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
Ingredients
- ½ pound thick cut bacon (about 8 slices)
- 2-3 ears fresh corn (enough to yield 1 ½ cups kernels)
- 2-3 jalapeño peppers (enough to yield ⅔ cup diced)
- 1 small white onion (enough to yield ⅓ cup diced)
- 4 ounces monterey jack cheese (enough to yield 1 cup grated)
- 1 ¾ cups yellow cornmeal
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 ¼ cups buttermilk
- ¼ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup melted butter
- ¼ cup honey
- ½ teaspoon fresh lime zest
Instructions
- Arrange bacon slices in a large (9") cast iron skillet. Try to get them in a single layer if possible, but if they don't fit that's okay, overlap them a bit and they will shrink as they cook. Transfer the skillet to a cold oven and turn the heat on to 400℉. Cook for about 30 minutes, flipping halfway through, until crisp. Transfer the cooked bacon to a plate, let them cool slightly, then chop into large pieces. You should have about 1 cup chopped bacon. Carefully pour the bacon grease out of the skillet and into a heat proof bowl and leave the oven on.
- Prep the veggies while the bacon is cooking. Slice the fresh corn kernels from their cobs dice the jalapeno, peppers, and peel and dice the white onion.
- Return 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease to the skillet and add the corn kernels, diced jalapeño, and diced onion. Stir to coat.
- Transfer the skillet back to the hot oven, placing it on the bottom rack, and roast for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through, until roasted and softened.
- Transfer the cooked corn mixture to a mixing bowl and stir in the chopped crispy bacon. Once again, leave the oven turned on.
- Grate the Monterey jack cheese while the veggies are roasting. Use the largest holes of your box grater; you should end up with a generous 1 cup of cheese!
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl: cornmeal, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a separate bowl: whisk the eggs, buttermilk, sour cream, melted butter, and honey together, then whisk in the fresh lime zest.
- Return 1 tablespoon of bacon grease to the skillet, using a brush to get it well into the corners and up the sides. This will make your cornbread easy to remove later! Place the greased skillet in the hot oven and let it heat for 5 minutes.
- Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, then add the roasted corn mixture and the grated cheese (keep a little bit of the corn mixture and the cheese off to the side for topping if you want!). Gently fold everything together, just until no dry streaks remain.
- Remove your hot skillet from the oven and add the loaded cornbread batter to it, smoothing it into an even layer. Sprinkle the top with reserved corn-jalapeño mixture and greeted cheese if desired.
- Place the skillet in the 400℉ oven and bake for 25-35 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove your skillet bacon jalapeño cornbread from the oven and let it cool in the skillet for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Category: Baked Goods
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 343
- Sugar: 8.9 g
- Sodium: 840.6 mg
- Fat: 17.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 37.7 g
- Protein: 10.6 g
- Cholesterol: 66.2 mg
dig in!
Enjoy & let me know what you think 🌙 💛
