Navajo Cornbread

About this Recipe

Cornbread lovers are likely going to get pretty excited to try this savory Navajo Cornbread recipe. This cornbread has texture that comes from using a medium grind cornmeal and whole corn kernels plus the individual flavors of fresh green onions, fresh jalapeno pepper and cheese merge together to form this rustic style cornbread recipe . Some recipes are just fun to try. As you are reading through the list of ingredients, it is not too hard to imagine what this is going to taste like. The original recipe used canned cream corn, which is likely very good too, but we had some of our own Fresh Frozen Corn On The Cob so wanted to substitute that and it turned out perfectly! In the late summer and fall, we put up a small amount of frozen veggies and do some canning each year, so we of course use these food items in the recipes we make, at least until we run out!

Grandmother's Kitchen Tips for Navajo Cornbread Recipe:

1. When handling hot peppers, like jalapenos, use disposable gloves. Hot peppers have volatile oils that can burn your skin and hurt your eyes if you rub your fingers on your eyes when the oil is on your skin. The seeds and inner membrane are the hottest part of the jalapeno. The jalapeno in this recipe is not that hot because we removed all seeds and membrane before chopping.

2. If you do happen to forget to wear gloves and the oil from the jalapeno gets onto your skin and you feel the burning sensation, washing your hands in soapy water will help. Cornstarch will help to neutralize the sensation and vinegar which is an acid can also help.

3. You can also substitute a fine grind cornmeal if you want less texture.

4. You can use different baking pans, cast iron is wonderful for cornbread or you could make this into muffins. Just be mindful that you will need to adjust your baking times for the various size baking dishes.

5. Defrost the frozen corn before you add it to the recipe. You can just put into a bowl and run water over it and let sit 10 minutes or so, then drain before using in the recipe.


Ingredients

(Print)

Make (one 9x13 baking pan or we used a 4 section mini-loaf pan each mini loaf is 3.5 x 5 inches in size)

1 1/2 cups medium grind cornmeal

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs

2 cups frozen corn, defrosted

1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup milk

1/3 cup vegetable oil - we used grapeseed oil

1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely diced

1 bunch fresh green onions, chopped - about 1 cup worth, we ended up with 3/4 cup from our bunch

1 cup grated cheese, we used orange cheddar, you can use whatever type you prefer

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Grease your baking pan.

3. Chop the green onions into thin slices. The recipe calls for one cup,but if you have a little bit more or less it is fine.

4. Cut the jalapeno pepper into thin small pieces and remove all the inner membrane and seeds. We suggest wearing kitchen safe vinyl gloves whenever working with hot peppers. Add the pepper to the onions. Set aside.

5. Stir the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt together into a bowl to combine and set aside.

6. In a large mixing bowl combine the eggs, milk, vegetable oil and sour cream and use a hand mixer on low speed to mix together until you see the ingredients are combined.

7. Add the dry ingredients along with the corn, jalapeno pepper, green onions and grated cheese. Use a spatula to fold the ingredients in and to just combine the batter, don't over beat.

8. Transfer the batter into the greased pan.

9. Place into the preheated oven on the middle rack and bake. Do the toothpick test in the center of the Navajo bread and if it comes out clean it is ready. For our mini-muffin tin we baked the cornbread for 45 minutes.

If you are using one big 9x13 pan the baking time will be longer. Set the timer to 55 minutes and check at that point. It may take 60-65 minutes to bake through, depending on the oven.

10. Let the cornbread sit in the pan for 15 minutes before removing.

11. This cornbread tastes best when fresh from the oven, so for any leftovers, reheat in a toaster oven if you have or you could do in a frying pan as well for the absolute finest flavor. Of course it can also be eaten at room temperature if this is not convenient to do.

ENJOY!

Return to this Navajo Cornbread recipe or check out more recipes at Grandmother's Kitchen

I will give you a quick story here about a personal experience with hot peppers When I was in my 20's and homesteading, I decided to make a batch of salsa to put up for canning. Back then, there was no internet to refer to and I lived in a rather remote area and had NO experience working with hot peppers. When I use to can, I would do large batches at a time so, I had a lot of hot peppers that needed to be seeded, cut and added to the pot. I did it all with bare hands. The burning effect from handling that many hot peppers hit a short while later and both of my hands were literally 'on fire' and burned through the day and the night. I kept my hands on ice-packs to try to cool them down. This was a pain that was pretty intense, and if I touched my face at all, you could feel the burn instantly, so knowing this was happening I was very mindful not to rub my eyes and I just dealt with it until it finally settled down. I had no idea those innocent looking little peppers could leave an oil residue that would cause such an intense burning. This is why I suggest you wear gloves, even to cut one small pepper for this recipe!

Try our Creamy Broccoli Soup to serve with this Navajo Cornbread Recipe.



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