28 Soul Food Recipes That Southerners Swear By (and Northerners Need to Try)

28 Soul Food Recipes That Southerners Swear By (and Northerners Need to Try)

PureWow

You may know Jocelyn Delk Adams, food blogger and author of the award-winning Grandbaby Cakes: Modern Recipes, Vintage Charm, Soulful Memories, for her stunning desserts. But it turns out the baker extraordinaire has a *ton* of savory, traditional Southern recipes up her sleeve too, including comfort food classics like baked mac and cheese, cornbread and candied sweet potatoes. Here are her most essential soul food recipes, along with a few favorites of ours that are sitting firmly on our to-cook list.

Grandbaby Cakes

1. Southern Collard Greens

Delk Adams calls them the staple green vegetable of the South. If you’ve never shopped for greens before, she suggests checking the leaves before buying to make sure they’re easy to pull away from the stem and not too tough. You can make greens without meat, but the smoky, salty ham hock is more than just traditional. It’s also the key to the flavorful broth (aka pot likker) that the greens braise in.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

2. Southern Cornbread

This family recipe leans on a cast-iron skillet for crispy edges and a moist, buttery inside. The key is getting the skillet scorching hot while you mix the batter, then greasing it with vegetable oil and pouring the batter in before transferring the skillet to the oven. Eat it with barbecue, dip it in gumbo or have a slice fresh out of the oven slathered in butter.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

3. Southern Baked Macaroni and Cheese

Southern mac and cheese is heavy, rich and beyond decadent, since it includes both usual suspects (butter and shredded cheese), as well as heavy cream, half and half and eggs. If you’re wondering why eggs, they add stability to the dish as it bakes. Delk Adams’s recipe uses three cheeses (sharp cheddar, Manchego and Gruyére) and lots of spices, like ground mustard, nutmeg and red pepper flakes. Just make sure that you don’t overcook the pasta—it’ll finish softening in the oven.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

4. Candied Sweet Potatoes

This five-ingredient side couldn’t be easier to pull off. In fact, you probably have all the necessary ingredients already, minus the sweet potatoes themselves. Thanks to sugar, butter and a few more seasonings, the water the potatoes cook in magically transforms (read: evaporates) into a sweet, syrupy glaze.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

5. Fried Catfish

Fried chicken may be the first dish that comes to mind when you think about soul food, but Delk Adams’s recipe proves fried fish is just as quintessential (and delicious). The flaky fillets are dredged in an old-school spiced cornmeal breading, just as her grandma, aka Big Mama, used to do. The most important tip here is to not overcrowd the oil: a packed fryer causes the oil’s temperature to cool, which is a recipe for soggy fish. (On that note, you may want to pick up a deep-frying thermometer to make sure the oil is just the right temperature.) Serve with lemon wedges and allllll the tartar sauce.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

6. Southern Baked Chicken

If you’d rather avoid deep-frying, this recipe for buttery, sweet baked chicken will definitely not disappoint. Pats of butter mingle with maple syrup, onions and spices in the oven to create a sticky sauce and crispy chicken skin. While Delk Adams uses chicken wings, you can substitute legs or thighs—just don’t use chicken breast, which is sure to dry out instead of tenderize due to the longer cooking time.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

7. Auntie Rose’s Southern Cornbread Dressing

You know that skillet cornbread recipe you just bookmarked? That’s the base for this Southern holiday mainstay. It’s a bit of a labor of love, as Delk Adams uses homemade cornbread and homemade chicken stock (she says store-bought doesn’t come close). She also sometimes adds layers of shredded chicken to the stuffing itself instead of serving it alongside turkey or chicken. The key to the dressing’s moisture, though, is four cans of soup—two cream of mushroom and two cream of chicken.

Get the recipe

While these dishes are Delk Adams’s most essential, here are 21 more soul food recipes to dive into, including Southern dinners, sides and desserts.

Grandbaby Cakes

8. Southern Black Eyed Peas

New Year’s Day is incomplete in the South without a pot of these on the table. While Sephardic Jews brought the recipe to Georgia in the 18th century, the dish became a symbol of emancipation for African Americans after the Civil War.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

9. Sweet Tea Fried Chicken

Don’t get us wrong—Jocelyn’s standard fried chicken recipe is beyond mouthwatering. But we love this creative mashup of two Southern classics, where the sweet tea is used as a brine.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

10. Fried Green Tomatoes

Green tomatoes can hold their own against a deep fryer, while red tomatoes are too soft and ripe. These beauties are crunchy and savory on the outside, tart and soft on the inside.

Get the recipe

Brown Sugar

11. Easy Red Beans and Rice

This Creole staple stars beans braised alongside ham hock and Andouille sausage.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

12. Grits

When the recipe calls for an entire stick of butter, we take that as a good omen.

Get the recipe

My Forking Life

13. Southern Deviled Eggs

You can make this crowd-pleaser up to a day ahead of serving. Your guests will love their spicy tang, courtesy of jalapeño and relish.

Get the recipe

Simply LaKita

12. Fried Okra

Go ahead and make a second batch—they only take 20 minutes to bread and fry, and they definitely won’t last long.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

13. Big Mama’s Biscuits

Delk Adams’s trips to visit her grandmother in Mississippi always called for daily biscuit breakfasts. One bite, and you’ll see why.

Get the recipe

Brown Sugar

14. Fried Fish Po’ Boy Sandwich

While you could use catfish, tilapia or whiting fish, you definitely shouldn’t substitute the traditional French bread.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

15. Seafood Gumbo

Another New Orleans mainstay, this gumbo is fully loaded with shrimp, oysters and crabmeat, plus okra and lots of peppers.

Get the recipe

My Forking Life

16. Stewed Okra and Tomatoes

Talk about making the most of tomato season. Come summer, you’ll want this 30-minute wonder in your back pocket.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

17. Hush Puppies

Jocelyn puts it perfectly: “Hush puppies are to fried fish what peanut butter is to jelly.” If you’ve never tried hush puppies, they’re basically like little cornbread fritters.

Get the recipe

Dude That Cookz

18. Classic Southern-Style Meatloaf

Whipping the heavy cream and eggs together helps make the meatloaf surprisingly moist.

Get the recipe

Dude That Cookz

19. Southern Creamed Corn

OK, ready to have your mind blown? Take out your Bundt pan, stand the corn cob on the center whole and slice off the kernels for a mess-free mise en place.

Get the recipe

Simply LaKita

20. Easy Weeknight Shrimp and Grits

We’ll let you in on a little secret: The key to this 20-minute recipe is quick-cooking grits, which only take about 5 minutes from start to finish.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

21. Southern Pecan Pie

This holiday-ready dessert is buttery, gooey and lusciously caramelized. Big Mama does it again.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

22. Sweet Potato Pie

This recipe strays from the traditional a bit, since it uses both sugar and corn syrup, as well as tangy buttermilk.

Get the recipe

My Forking Life

23. Southern Chess Pie

While this treat hails from England originally, it’s now a Virginia mainstay. It’s basically egg custard in pie crust. (If you’re going to make your own crust, go for this recipe, which calls for both shortening and butter.)

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

24. Homemade Banana Pudding

Go the extra mile by spritzing the bananas with citrus juice so they don’t brown (and, while you’re at it, don’t skip the broiled meringue topper either).

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

25. Southern Peach Cobbler

Canned peaches are totally fine to use—just drain most of the syrup. It’s worth the extra effort to make your own syrup to go with it.

Get the recipe

Grandbaby Cakes

26. Southern Egg Pie

Be sure not to overbake it. The pie should still be a bit jiggly in the center when you take it out of the oven.

Get the recipe

Dude That Cookz

27. Traditional Southern Pecan Pralines

Trust us: Your willpower is absolutely no match for this NOLA delicacy.

Get the recipe

Simply LaKita

28. Hummingbird Coffee Cake

Meet a breakfast-inspired twist on hummingbird cake, an iconic banana-pineapple spice cake originally from Jamaica that’s now popular in the South.

Get the recipe

 

This article was from PureWow and was legally licensed through the Industry Dive Content Marketplace. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.

Edit
Shopping List
    Edit
    Shopping List

    Personal List

      Shopping List

      Recipe

      ShoppingList_RecipeName

      View Recipe>>

      Ingredients

        Shopping List
        Go To Meal Planner