Old Fashioned Gluten Free Cornbread | the original best recipe

The perfect side for any meal, this easy gluten free cornbread recipe can be made naturally gluten free with all cornmeal and no other flours. Use it to make the best cornbread muffins, too!

What makes this recipe the best gluten free cornbread?

This recipe was one of the earliest gluten free recipes I shared on the blog, and it’s become a staple in so many readers’ homes. The recipe has always been simple, and still remarkably adaptable.

Many of you have written to me of the years, telling me that you made it with granulated sugar instead of honey, milk instead of buttermilk or yogurt, shortening or coconut oil (or even vegetable oil!) instead of butter. The recipe has turned out every single time.

It bakes very quickly, especially if you’re making it in a cast iron pan, since that conducts heat very well. The sides and bottom of the cornbread also brown very nicely in the oven.

Is cornbread normally gluten free? Is corn gluten free?

Corn itself does not have gluten in it, so it’s naturally gluten free. Cornmeal is made by simply grinding yellow corn into a coarse or fine grind.

For complete information on which grains and other ingredients are naturally gluten free, please check out my Ultimate Guide to the Basic Rules of a Gluten Free Diet. It’s a great way to begin a gluten free on the right foot.

Be careful about the cornmeal you buy, though, to ensure that it isn’t contaminated with gluten-containing grains during manufacturing. Bob’s Red Mill brand has a certified gluten free cornmeal variety, so if you buy that brand be sure to pick up the right package.

Most cornbread is made from cornmeal and wheat flour, so it’s not gluten free. The only flour in the original “old fashioned cornbread” recipe is coarsely ground yellow cornmeal, no wheat flour, so it’s naturally gluten free. 

Can I use this recipe to make “flourless” cornbread muffins?

I have made this easy cornbread recipe in nearly every container imaginable, most often in a cast iron skillet or a round 9-inch cake pan. Until recently, I hadn’t tried it in a standard 12-cup muffin tin—until now.

I lined the wells with greaseproof paper liners, so the muffins didn’t stick, and distributed the batter evenly among the wells. In my muffin tin, the wells were nearly full of batter.

This isn’t a high-rising cornbread, so I wasn’t concerned that the muffins would overflow the pan. I made the variation with half coarsely ground yellow cornmeal, half corn flour, as discussed below.

The muffins rose evenly, and baked perfectly at 350°F in 18 minutes flat. I was considering adding another egg, since the batter is looser than an ideal muffin batter, but I wanted to see if it worked as written.

The all cornmeal recipe

This recipe has long been a staple of this blog for so many reasons, not the least of which are because it’s so incredibly simple—and strikingly adaptable. The original recipe calls for 2 cups of coarsely ground yellow cornmeal as the only flour—without any added starches or more finely ground flours.

I call it “coarsely ground yellow cornmeal,” but that’s a bit redundant since cornmeal is simply corn that’s been dried, and coarsely ground. All cornmeal is, by definition, coarsely ground.

Made this way, as the recipe was originally written, this classic cornbread recipe is moist and tender, but has a fair amount of “bite” from the cornmeal. The honey helps keep the cornbread tender and helps offset any bitterness from the cornmeal.

None of these variations contain cornstarch, which is a flavorless powder made from only the starch in the endosperm of the corn grain. You could probably replace a bit of the cornmeal with cornstarch and get a more tender cornbread, but I prefer the other variations listed in this recipe.

The cornmeal and corn flour recipe

Cornmeal is coarsely ground corn, and corn flour is finely ground corn. You can buy corn flour, but generally I simply take my coarsely ground yellow cornmeal and grind it again in a blender until it’s lighter.

I consider this variety, made with half coarsely ground yellow cornmeal and half corn flour, to be the best gluten free cornbread of all.

Replacing half of the coarsely ground cornmeal in this recipe with more finely ground corn flour makes for a less crumbly, more cohesive cornbread. It also has a smoother mouth feel, and tends to stay fresh another day longer when stored at room temperature, wrapped tightly.

Since I’ve started experimenting with changing up the flours in this recipe, this variation has become my favorite. I do sometimes buy corn flour if I’m placing an order for other things from nuts.com (where I buy gluten free corn flour), but more often grind my own.

U.K. terminology

To confuse things a bit, I’m afraid that these terms are used differently in the U.K. I believe that “corn flour” in the U.K. is actually what we call cornstarch in the U.S. (the starch only).

I assume you can find “coarsely ground cornmeal” in the U.K. though. Can any readers help us understand?

The cornmeal and all purpose gluten free flour recipe

I learned that this recipe could be made with half all purpose gluten free flour (I’ve only used Better Batter, but I’m sure any of my recommended blends would work) when I ran out of cornmeal after I had already prepared all the ingredients to make cornbread.

Since it was only for my family, and my husband will eat anything, especially if it’s warm when I serve it, I decided to try it with half all purpose gluten free flour. The recipe worked (although it took about another 5 minutes to bake fully)!

The all purpose gluten free flour version makes for a cornbread that has a much smaller crumb, and a lighter crumb color overall (although the top is just as yellow). The crust itself is also less crispy.

As you’d expect, it has little bite and is much less chewy than the other two versions. I would not recommend making the cornbread with a combination of all purpose gluten free flour and and corn flour, though, as it would not have the right texture.

You’ll also notice that this cornbread tends to dome more in the center during baking. That’s likely because the combination of flours leads to less even baking, but of course it doesn’t affect the flavor or texture any further.

Can you freeze cornbread?

Yes, you can freeze cornbread and corn muffins. If you make this recipe with at least some all purpose gluten free flour, your baked goods will stay fresh for a bit longer and freeze a bit better.

If you make a naturally gluten free variety of the cornbread, without any rice-based flour blend, you should eat it soon after baking, or freeze it for later use. Defrost briefly in the microwave, as even a warm oven will dry out the cornbread.

Ingredients and substitutions

This is such a simple recipe, which often makes substitutions more difficult, but somehow this gluten free cornbread recipe is magic ✨ and can take all sorts of modifications in stride. Some following suggestions are from personal experience with this recipe, others are just well-educated guesses.

Dairy

I have successfully made this recipe dairy-free by using Earth Balance buttery sticks in place of unsalted butter (just reduce the salt by half) and non-dairy plain yogurt in place of yogurt.

You can also try a mix of half plain dairy-free yogurt and half unsweetened almond milk, as a buttermilk replacement. That’s your best bet.

Egg

As always, whenever there is one egg in a recipe, I recommend trying it with one “chia egg” in its place (1 tablespoon ground chia seeds + 1 tablespoon lukewarm water, mixed and allowed to gel). I haven’t tried this egg-free, though, so you’ll have to experiment, but I feel pretty confident that you’ll get good results.

Corn

Well, this is a super tough one, to make cornbread without, well, corn. The only reason I think this might be even remotely possible is because I’ve seen some Paleo recipes floating around the Internet that use ground millet in place of cornmeal to make a corn-free “cornbread.”

Perhaps the all purpose gluten free flour variation, which contains only 1 cup of coarsely ground cornmeal, can be made with ground millet in place of the cornmeal. But replacing the cornmeal entirely is a big risk, so only try it if you’re feeling adventuresome!