Corn Muffins Recipe

Cornbread muffins are light, fluffy and a perfect side dish to any cold weather dinner. This is a small batch recipe for just 6 corn muffins. You can double it for a larger batch and add any flavors you wish!

These Cornbread Muffins are the perfect addition to Chili season

With chili season upon us, we have a big need for a small batch of cornbread muffins. If you’ve wisely made my ground beef chili for two, these corn muffins are the perfect thing for dunking. They’re also great alongside my instant pot taco soup or vegan black bean burrito bowls. And to be honest, I love a cornbread muffin dripping with butter for breakfast, and so do my kids–a fried egg with one of these is savory breakfast heaven!

Also, if you’re making my Southern cornbread dressing as part of my Thanksgiving for two, this is the base for it!

This corn muffins recipe is special because you can use stone-ground cornmeal, if you prefer. Since the batter is cut with regular flour, it can handle some stone-ground cornmeal, but regular cornmeal is totally fine, too! I’ve even used blue corn meal with beautiful results.

Corn Muffins Recipe ingredients

Besides buttermilk, I always have the ingredients for this recipe on hand.

• Cornmeal. Finely ground yellow, white or blue cornmeal. Any color will work, but make sure it’s finely ground.
• Flour. We balance cornmeal with a bit of all-purpose flour in corn muffins so that the muffins are light and fluffy.
• Sugar. A small amount of granulated sugar for sweetness, even though I almost always serve these with honey.
• Baking Powder.
• Baking Soda.
• Salt.
• Egg. One large egg, beaten.
• Buttermilk. If you don’t have buttermilk, use an equal amount of regular milk (whole milk is best but skim and 2% is fine, too). Add one-half teaspoon of vinegar to your milk of choice and let it rest for 5 minutes before using it in this recipe.
• Butter. Melted unsalted butter for the batter, and also make sure you have extra butter for serving on top.

Corn Muffin Recipe variations

These corn muffins are great with these modifications:

• stir in some grated aged cheddar and 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• stir in pickled jalapeño or fresh jalapeño slices (add up to 1 tablespoon of pickled jalapeño juice)
• leftover crumbled bacon is welcome (up to 2 tablespoons)
• fresh herbs like chives, cilantro or even thyme are great stirred in

How to make Corn Muffins

Cornbread Muffin Recipe tips

My best tip for making cornbread muffins is spraying the liners with a small amount of cooking spray before adding the batter. This prevents the muffins falling apart right when they’re done.

My method for allowing the batter to rest for 15 minutes before baking ensures that the cornmeal soaks up the liquid ingredients. This way, your cornbread muffins are always moist and never dry!

What to serve with Corn Muffins from Scratch

I have never met a bowl of chili that didn’t love a corn muffin alongside! My best main dishes that love corn muffins are:

• Beef Chili (small batch)
• White Chicken Chili
• Crockpot Chili with Beans
• Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili
• Vegetarian Chili Slow Cooker

How to store Corn Bread Muffins

In our house, these 6 muffins happily feel like just enough cornbread for two, but in my single days, I would freeze half of the muffins for another night. If you freeze half, make sure you label them in a freezer-safe bag, because it’s not fun finding random muffins in the freezer and not knowing if they’re savory or sweet–been there, done that!

Cornbread is one of the many reasons I always keep buttermilk in my fridge. For ways to use up leftover buttermilk, try these recipes:

• Lemon Buttermilk Pudding Cakes
• Tamale Pie
• Small batch Blueberry Muffins
• Red Velvet Cake and Red Velvet Cupcakes
• Cakes without Egg recipes