Jalapeno Basil Cornbread

Perfect Pairing:  Chicken Chili

Everyone loves cornbread!  It's hard to go wrong.  Even the boxed versions are pretty decent!  If you have some extra time, and are not feeling like the boxed variety is going to cut it, you may enjoy this homemade version.  This recipe has a slightly sweet flavor but it also has some great ingredients like buttermilk (to keep it really moist), fresh basil, frozen corn, and jalapeno peppers.  This version is a bit denser than the standard variety but is really tasty.

I have made a few different versions of jalapeno cornbread but this is the first time I have added basil.  I really liked the flavor combination and will definitely be doing that again.  I love having a basil plant on my patio where I can snip fresh basil for recipes.  Unfortunately, I don’t get a lot of sun on my patio and my plants do not exactly thrive.  I am going to go ahead and blame it on the lack of sun.  At this point in the season people are usually making pesto because their basil plants are full and it would take a hundred caprese salads to use up all of the leaves.  Me, not so much.  This recipe pretty much depleted my basil.  Look at this sad little guy….

The Perfect Pairing for this cornbread is the Chicken Chili recipe I posted here.  The slightly sweet flavor of the cornbread was a great compliment to the spicy soup. 

Jalapeno Basil Cornbread

Lindsay at Perfecting the Pairing

Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

·         1 ½ cup buttermilk

·         4 egg whites

·         ½ cup fresh basil, chopped

·         2 cups cornmeal

·         1 cup flour

·         ½ cup sugar

·         4 tsp baking powder

·         1 tsp salt

·         4 Tb butter, cubed

·         1, 12 oz, bag frozen corn, defrosted

·         1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Coat a 9 inch pie plate with cooking spray.  In a large bowl combine the buttermilk, egg whites and basil, whisk.  In the bowl of a food processor add the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.  Process until combined.  Add the cubed butter and process until it forms a course meal.  Add the corn and process until just combined, be careful to not completely chop all of the corn.  Add the contents of the food processor to the buttermilk mixture.  Stir with a spatula to combine.  Add the chopped pepper and stir until distributed.

Pour into prepared pie plate.  Bake 40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

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