I love cornbread. A whole lot. I love it with everything. One of the foods I miss as a vegetarian is corndogs (don't hate), and I'm pretty sure it's only because they involve deep fried cornbread. Having lived my entire life in the South, I like to think I have a well developed ability to distinguish bad cornbread from amazing cornbread. And let me tell you, there is A LOT of really bad cornbread in the world. Unfortunately, there are also a lot of not so healthy ingredients in cornbread. All of these things forced me to search for the perfect, healthier cornbread recipe I knew existed somewhere.
A friend gave me this recipe several years ago. I've had it so long and made it so many times and made so many adjustments that I no longer recall the original version. This was the first vegan recipe I ever made, and it's what really turned me on to not just vegan food (as opposed to vegetarian) but also clean food (that is, food without any refined or processed sugars). For the first time I realized that eggs weren't always necessary to make a recipe work, and sometimes recipes taste better without the eggs. I love using the flax egg replacement-- because not only does it work great, but it also adds a lot of nutrition. And because this recipe doesn't use refined, dry sugar like all the other recipes, it's guaranteed to never ever come out dry and gross.
Sometimes I don't make this recipe vegan by adding some freshly grated parmigiano to the recipe--but I've found that the addition of the nutritional yeast gives the same cheesy taste with the additional bonus of giving me all of my B vitamins for the day.
And to make this cornbread extra nutritious and southern, I like to add collard greens. Because collard greens and cornbread go hand in hand.
Vegan Cornbread with Collard Greens
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup Corn Flour (medium or fine ground)
1 tsp Kosher Salt (plus more to taste)
4 tsp Baking Powder (Aluminum Free)
2 tsp Nutritional Yeast*
1 cup Plain Soy Milk (can substitute water)
1/4 cup Pure Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Flax Eggs (2 Tbsp Flax Meal + 6 Tbsp Water, heated)
2 Cloves of garlic
1 Jalapeño or Habañero*
~1 cup Fresh or Frozen Corn
1 Large Collard Green with Stem (or two small leaves)
~1/4 tsp Cinnamon*
Dash of Allspice*
*optional
A few notes on this recipe: The amount of Baking Powder seems to be a large amount, but it is very necessary to make the batter less dense. It is imperative that you use Aluminum Free Baking Powder for this recipe, or you will have the unfortunate consequence of your corn bread tasting like metal (I learned this while on vacation and didn't have access to good baking powder. Trust me on this one.).
Also, you don't want to use a coarse corn flour or your bread will be gritty. A medium ground will still have some tooth to it, but is perfectly fine to use. I've found that it's best to use a fine ground corn flour for this recipe. Bob's Red Mill has a good fine corn flour if you can't find any in bulk.
Instructions
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients (the flour, baking powder, nutritional yeast, salt, and spices)
In a smaller bowl, pour in the maple syrup, olive oil, soy milk, and approximately one cup of frozen or fresh corn.
Chop the collard green stem, garlic cloves, and the jalapeño. Add them to the liquid mixture.
Now it's time to make the flax eggs. First, put two heaping tablespoons of ground flax seed in a small pan. Add 6 tablespoons of water to the mix. (One flax egg equals 1 tbsp ground flax seed and 3 tbsp of water)
Next, slowly heat the flax and water mixture on the stove, stirring constantly.
You will see the water and flax combination starting to come together.
Keep stirring the mix until you notice the texture change from a liquid to more of a paste. It will start to look like glue.
Remove the flax from the heat and immediately add it to your liquid mixture. Soak your pan immediately or the flax will become cement.
Pour the liquid mix into the dry mix and stir it up. Once it comes together, set it to the side.
Chop the collard green into little strips. Make sure you don't have any long stringy pieces.
Add the collard greens into the mix. At this point, I like to add about 2 tablespoons more of olive oil.
Now, let all of it rest for a while. I usually let it rest while the oven heats. This step makes a difference in how well all the flavors bind together, and generally leads to your cornbread tasting better.
Heat your oven to 420 F (lol) and grease an 8"x8" pan. If you want to make muffins, use a muffin pan and heat the oven to 375 F. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until the top looks toasty and a butter knife comes out clean. Muffins generally take about 15-20 minutes.
Remove the cornbread from the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before you attempt to remove it from the pan.
I love eating this cornbread by itself, with some home made salsa, or with some soup. Or you can do it up southern style with some white beans or a bowl of chili. Today we had some for lunch with a spicy tomato sauce.
Whenever I make this recipe as muffins to take to potlucks, I never come home with extras.
This cornbread can be stored covered at room temperature, but tends to go bad after about 2 days. You can refrigerate it, but that doesn't help extend the shelf life by much. But don't worry! If you make this cornbread, you won't have any leftovers.
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