Name: Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour (fluffed, spooned, and leveled); 2¼ cups yellow cornmeal (fluffed); 1 cup granulated sugar; 2 teaspoons salt; 2 tablespoons baking powder; 2⅓ cups milk (preferably whole milk); 2 large eggs (beaten); 2 sticks unsalted butter (melted); 2 cups shredded cheddar ((about 8oz per 2 cups)); ¾ cup pickled jalapeño (liquid drained and roughly chopped)

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This is the easiest and BEST jalapeño cheddar cornbread recipe ever! It's moist, tender, flavorful, buttery, and well balanced between sweet and savory with a very mild kick from the pickled jalapeño. If you love Jiffy's cornbread, you'll LOVE this! It's the perfect, must-have side for the holidays next to some creamy mashed potatoes and sautéed broccolini! Alternatively, if you prefer rolls, these pumpkin dinner rolls are amazing for mopping up sauces and drippings.

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Ingredients needed to make jalapeño cheddar cornbread
Cornmeal vs corn flour
How to make the BEST jalapeño cheddar cornbread
Recipe tips
Storage
Reheating
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Ingredients needed to make jalapeño cheddar cornbread

Please scroll down to the recipe card for the ingredient quantities!

All-purpose flour and yellow cornmeal - Regular flour gives the cornbread structure and tenderness and the yellow cornmeal gives the cornbread its iconic yellow color, flavor, and texture. We usually use yellow cornmeal from Pearl Milling.
Sugar and salt - We like our cornbread on the sweet side so sugar is a must. The salt helps balance everything else. We like to use fine salt so that it dissolves faster.
Baking powder - Because our cornbread recipe doesn't require buttermilk, it will be leavened with baking powder instead of baking soda. Make sure your baking powder hasn't expired before using!
Milk and eggs - We recommend whole milk for the best flavor. Both the milk and eggs enrich the cornbread batter.
Unsalted butter - Butter is a must to make cornbread delicious! It makes the cornbread rich and moist. And just like all of our baking recipes, we recommend using unsalted butter so that you can control the amount of salt going into a recipe.
Cheddar and pickled jalapeño - These two are our star flavors and a classic combo! You can use already shredded cheddar for convenience.

Cornmeal vs corn flour

One important thing to note — cornmeal and cornflour are NOT the same!

Cornmeal is coarser and gives cornbread its iconic coarse texture. Corn flour is much finer and are usually used for thickening, frying, and sometimes as a gluten free flour substitute.

How to make the BEST jalapeño cheddar cornbread

Please scroll down to the recipe card for the full recipe and instructions!

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and prepare a greased 9x13 baking pan.

2. Prepare dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder until well combined.

3. Add wet ingredients. To the dry mixture, add the milk, eggs, and melted butter. Whisk until just combined. DO NOT overmix! A few lumps here and there is okay.

Add the cheddar and chopped jalapeño and gently fold together with a rubber spatula. Make sure to scrape the bottom and side of the bowls too!

4. Bake. Pour the batter into the greased baking pan and spread it out evenly. You can also tap the bottom of the pan a few times to make it more even. Bake the cornbread for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center comes out clean or with only a couple of crumbs.

5. Cut and enjoy! Once the cornbread is done, let it cool for 10 to 15 minutes before cutting. Enjoy while warm or at room temperature.

Recipe tips

Measure the all-purpose flour properly! The best way to measure is always with a kitchen scale. The best alternative is to measure properly with dry measuring cups. So when you measure the flour, make sure to fluff up the flour first. Then use a spoon to spoon it into the measuring cup. Finally, without shaking or tapping, scrape the excess flour off using a flat edge, like the back of a butterknife. If you scoop flour straight from bag or your flour jar, the weight difference could be 15 grams or more. That's more than 2 tablespoons!
Make sure to drain the pickled jalapeño before adding to the batter! The extra liquid could make the cornbread soggy.
DO NOT overmix the batter! Overmixing will give you dry, tough cornbread. So stop when the dough is just mixed and fold the cheddar and jalapeño with a spatula.
Sift the baking powder for even distribution. Sometimes the baking powder gets clumpy. A quick sift will ensure that there's no lumps, and it gets evenly distributed for evenly leavened cornbread.

Storage

Leftover jalapeño cheddar cornbread can be refrigerated for up to 4 days and frozen for up to 2 months. Just make sure to let the cornbread cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Also, for convenience, we recommend cutting the cornbread before storing.

Reheating

Chilled cornbread can reheat it in the microwave until warm. For frozen cornbread, let it thaw in the fridge overnight or on at room temperature.

If you made the jalapeño cheddar cornbread ahead of time for the holiday or get together, you can refrigerate the whole pan of cornbread after it's completely cooled. Make sure to wrap it well with cling wrap. To reheat, cover the pan with foil and place it in the oven on the lowest heat or the reheat setting until heated through.