Hot Honey Is The Sweet And Spicy Ingredient For Elevated Cornbread

Some foods serve as a beautiful blank canvas fit for delicious toppings. A sunny plate of cornbread is one appetizer that fits that bill. On its own, cornbread is moist, sweet, and perfectly crumbly at the edges. It's almost like it should be considered the dessert of the bread category. Still, it tastes even better when topped with a simple slab of butter, a pat of jam, or whatever other spreads that a creative chef comes up with.

One of the best ways to enjoy cornbread is to top it with an ingredient that will enhance its innate sweetness. One of the best ways to do that? Bring something spicy into the mix. This will introduce balance and complex flavors to this otherwise one-note side. 

To truly complement a cornbread's flavors while introducing a little something new into the mix, try using hot honey in lieu of traditional honey. A simple infusion of honey and chile peppers, this ingredient is equally sweet and spicy and those competing flavors make for a truly elevated dish. The honey brings even more moisture into the cornbread, and the red pepper flakes pack in a subtle punch of heat. It's no wonder that many foodies find this combination so appealing.

Drizzling some hot honey onto a skillet of cornbread brings some fun, modern flair to a classic dish. Whether you choose to make the honey topping at home or buy a bottle from the store is up to you. (Don't be intimidated if you want to make your own. After all, it's hard to mess up combining honey and peppers.)

Using honey for this appetizer offers a good compromise for lovers of both savory, spicy, and sweet. Instead of having to choose between these flavor profiles, you can actually mesh them all together — and it tastes good, too. Now everyone's happy. Settlements aside, you can also choose to indulge in this combination in whatever way suits you best. Pour some of that hot honey into a bowl and dip your cornbread in to control the spice levels, or drizzle it on top to create a glaze of honey atop the warm bread. The choice is up to you.

Hot honey brings a whole lot of flavor to cornbread (and that's not the only thing hot honey is good with), but it's not the only ingredient you can use that will truly elevate this dish. For fans of those spicy flavors, consider adding some sliced or chopped jalapeños into your cornbread mix. Round out this jalapeño cornbread recipe with some cheddar cheese and you've got one of the most addictive savory dishes around. 

For those who want something to cut the heat, a hot pepper jam would bring the same sweet and spicy flavors as hot honey does to a cornbread. It's best to save this ingredient for after the cornbread comes out of the oven, but you could even add some into the mix too to give your cornbread an extra kick of flavor. Lastly, for those who are concerned more with texture than flavor, pouring a cup of sweet corn kernels into a cornbread mix is a good way to introduce sweet bursts of flavor and texture. Whether fresh or frozen, either variety will work. Bonus: This ingredient makes cornbread come out even more moist, too. 

Whatever your elevating ingredient of choice, it's clear that cornbread reigns as one of the most versatile appetizers around. If you dig into one of these fun takes on a classic dish, we hope you enjoy it.