Recipe Connection: Gluten-Free Cornbread (with no fancy flours) (2024)

Just cornmeal! That’s all you need for perfectly moist gluten-free cornbread – no additional flours to juggle! It is so easy my kids can make it. Don’t forget to top it with lots of real fat, like butter (read more about the margarine vs butter debate here). Trying an elimination diet meal planner can be a very tricky and scary endeavor. You miss the foods you’re used to, and even worse, sometimes you don’t know how to make substitutes that don’t include your X food.

When we went grain-free, then gluten-free, a year and a half ago for the first time, I couldn’t stomach buying the fancy flours often called for in gluten-free recipes. We started by basically just making elimination diet recipes that didn’t include grains, or just cutting them from meals, like stir fry without the rice and chicken noodle soup without the noodles.

$9 for a bag of xanthan gum? Needing two, three, or even four different gluten-free flours to blend together to make one recipe, no guarantees that you’ll even like it? No, thanks. I’ll stick with my coconut flour muffins (from Healthy Snacks to Go) and these pumpkin Paleo pancakes.

The Basics

The two flours often used in grain-free baking are coconut flour and almond flour, and I quickly learned that coconut flour is used in such small amounts that it stretches a long way. As I mentioned on Facebook yesterday, I think coconut flour is the one new thing you should buy if you want to go grain-free OR gluten free.

After a while, though, I started wanting more variety to go with soup and salad (other than just soup and salad). I found a marvelous grain-free cheesy biscuit recipe in Well Fed Homestead’s A Whole Food Holiday, but I really wanted a gluten-free cornbread recipe to go with chili (Recipe available in The Everything Beans Book) last fall. There’s actually a gluten-free cornbread in Is Your Flour Wet?, the free downloadable soaked grains ebook, but it called for that pesky xanthan gum plus FOUR flours I didn’t have.

Twitter to the rescue!

I tried two different recipes, pegged the definite favorite, and then tweaked it a little more to make it both easier to make and a bit more sturdy.

A Winning Combination

It’s simple and doesn’t use any weird ingredients. If you’re just starting a gluten-free journey or trying to bring a gift of meal to someone who can’t have gluten, this cornbread will make chili possible!

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Recipe: Gluten-Free Cornbread

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No lying here, this cornbread is rather thin and not nearly as tasty as my old cornbread recipe, which I miss, but it’s good. It fills the gap when you’re gluten-free.

I do love that this version is so easy my kids can make it.

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Got any other tips to make gluten-free or grain-free baking simple?

GLUTEN-FREE CAN BE CONFUSING BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE HARD!

I’m thrilled to share a FREE gluten-free cheat sheet mini eBook to help get you started!This is perfect if you’ve just been told you need a GF diet, if you have a friend or family member eating GF and you’d like to cook for them, or if you’re just curious what it’s all about!

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