Side dishes · Breads & rolls

Cornbread

Name: Cornbread
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 9 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/3 cups cornmeal; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 1/3 cup granulated sugar; 2 1/2 tsp baking powder; 3/4 tsp salt; 1 1/4 cups whole milk; 2 egg; 6 tbsp butter, melted, plus more for the pan

The skillet quick-bread of the American South: crackly crust, tender crumb, equally at home under chili or butter and honey. This is the moderately sweet, Northern-truce version.

Time: 35 min (10 prep + 25 cook)
Servings: 9
Per serving: 243 kcal
Protein: 5 g

Both directions are legitimate — the score measures fullness per calorie, not virtue. Every version is the same dish, rebalanced.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups cornmeal160 g
1 cup all-purpose flour120 g
1/3 cup granulated sugar60 g
2 1/2 tsp baking powder10 g
3/4 tsp salt4 g
1 1/4 cups whole milk300 g
2 egg100 g
6 tbsp butter, melted, plus more for the pan85 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Heat the oven to 200°C with a buttered 20 cm (8-inch) cast-iron skillet or square pan inside — batter hitting a hot pan is where the crust comes from.
Whisk dry and wet separately, then fold together until just combined.
Pour into the hot pan (it should sizzle) and bake 20–25 minutes until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes in the pan. Cut into squares and argue about the sugar like everyone else.

Why this score

engineered against fullness

Dense calories with little protein, volume or fiber to fill you up.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

9% of kcal

38% water

5 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

29%

14%

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 2186 kcal goes into the pot, 839 g of ingredients comes out as ~720 g of food → 304 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 304
Protein: (9%); 7 g
Fat: (38%); 13 g
Carbohydrates: (53%); 41 g
of which sugar: 11 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 436 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More side dishes

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.