“Making cornbread from a box is easy, sure, but it is also limiting. Making cornbread from scratch really isn’t much harder, and it opens up a vast world of cornbread varieties, including adding spicy jalapeño chiles and cheddar cheese.”
— Cooks Country
In the midst of the Covid Pandemic, I’ve decided to take up freezing food. Freezing food has never been a habit of mine, but with the time at home that I have, I’ve decided to learn the tricks of the freezing trade. I started reading Budget Byte’s Freezer guide, found cornbread was one on the many foods that is easy to freeze, and immediately decided to make it.
Although, I am calling it Covid-Quaran-Bread/Covid Cornbread for now.
Freezer Notes
The first and (supposedly) most important thing I learned from reading through several different freezing do’s and dont’s is to label when the food was made (i.e. Covid Cornbread 3/16/20)). The reasoning was because at best, the food is only good for 3 months in the freezer.
The second most important thing I learned is to let the food chill completely (ideally overnight) in the fridge before placing in the freezer to avoid freezer burn.
Let’s Get Baking
Cornbread truly is simple to make. I succeeded with this recipe even though I decided to add 3/4 cup of actual corn kernels. It was an absolutely delicious “loaf?” and I can’t wait to eat it again when I bring it out of the freezer.
One of my favorite aspects about this recipe is that even though it calls for whisking the dry ingredients separately from the wet ingredients, it wasn’t actually necessary. I made everything in the same bowl and it came out perfectly.
There were two things I changed about this recipe. The first being that I only diced 3 jalapenos instead of 4. Not sure if the recipe calls for 4 jalapenos in case the jalapenos themselves are smaller, but the three I had were roughly medium-sized. You can tell in the photo that there was plenty of diced jalapenos throughout the bread. So, all that to say, use 3 or 4 at your own discretion.
The next thing I changed was adding 3/4 cup frozen corn that I defrosted. The corn addition didn’t change the batter nor end result from what I can tell. I chose 3/4 cup to match the same volume of jalapenos. If you wanted to add corn, I believe you could go all the way up to 1 cup of corn to add. Depending on how much you love corn.
My absolute favorite thing about this cornbread is the 1/2 cup cheese layer on top of the bread. The cheese added a nice, nutty crust to the top of the bread that you don’t normally see.
Happy freezer-friendly cooking during this super weird time!
Jalapeno-Cheddar Cornbread
INGREDIENTS
- 1½ cups (7½ ounces) yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- 1¼ cups whole milk
- 2 large eggs
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 6 ounces extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (1½ cups)
- 4 jalapeño chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced (¾ cup)
INSTRUCTIONS
Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease light-colored 9-inch round cake pan, line with parchment paper, and grease parchment.
Whisk cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in large bowl. Whisk milk, eggs, and melted butter together in second bowl. Stir milk mixture into cornmeal mixture until just combined. Stir in 1 cup cheddar and jalapeños until just combined. Transfer batter to prepared pan, smooth top with spatula, and sprinkle with remaining ½ cup cheddar.
Bake until cornbread is deep golden brown, top is firm to touch, and paring knife inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Let cornbread cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cornbread from pan, discarding parchment, and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Serve.
Let me know how the recipe turned out for you in the comments below!
Trial & Eggs 
Would love to try this one day😀
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