Delk Adams calls them the staple green vegetable of the South. If you’ve never shopped for greens before, she suggests checking the leaves before buying to make sure they’re easy to pull away from the stem and not too tough. You can make greens without meat, but the smoky, salty ham hock is more than just traditional. It’s also the key to the flavorful broth (aka pot likker) that the greens braise in.
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2. Southern Cornbread
This family recipe leans on a cast-iron skillet for crispy edges and a moist, buttery inside. The key is getting the skillet scorching hot while you mix the batter, then greasing it with vegetable oil and pouring the batter in before transferring the skillet to the oven. Eat it with barbecue, dip it in gumbo or have a slice fresh out of the oven slathered in butter.
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3. Southern Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Southern mac and cheese is heavy, rich and beyond decadent, since it includes both usual suspects (butter and shredded cheese), as well as heavy cream, half and half and eggs. If you’re wondering why eggs, they add stability to the dish as it bakes. Delk Adams’s recipe uses three cheeses (sharp cheddar, Manchego and Gruyére) and lots of spices, like ground mustard, nutmeg and red pepper flakes. Just make sure that you don’t overcook the pasta—it’ll finish softening in the oven.
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4. Candied Sweet Potatoes
This five-ingredient side couldn’t be easier to pull off. In fact, you probably have all the necessary ingredients already, minus the sweet potatoes themselves. Thanks to sugar, butter and a few more seasonings, the water the potatoes cook in magically transforms (read: evaporates) into a sweet, syrupy glaze.
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5. Fried Catfish
Fried chicken may be the first dish that comes to mind when you think about soul food, but Delk Adams’s recipe proves fried fish is just as quintessential (and delicious). The flaky fillets are dredged in an old-school spiced cornmeal breading, just as her grandma, aka Big Mama, used to do. The most important tip here is to not overcrowd the oil: a packed fryer causes the oil’s temperature to cool, which is a recipe for soggy fish. (On that note, you may want to pick up a deep-frying thermometer to make sure the oil is just the right temperature.) Serve with lemon wedges and allllll the tartar sauce.
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6. Southern Baked Chicken
If you’d rather avoid deep-frying, this recipe for buttery, sweet baked chicken will definitely not disappoint. Pats of butter mingle with maple syrup, onions and spices in the oven to create a sticky sauce and crispy chicken skin. While Delk Adams uses chicken wings, you can substitute legs or thighs—just don’t use chicken breast, which is sure to dry out instead of tenderize due to the longer cooking time.
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7. Auntie Rose’s Southern Cornbread Dressing
You know that skillet cornbread recipe you just bookmarked? That’s the base for this Southern holiday mainstay. It’s a bit of a labor of love, as Delk Adams uses homemade cornbread and homemade chicken stock (she says store-bought doesn’t come close). She also sometimes adds layers of shredded chicken to the stuffing itself instead of serving it alongside turkey or chicken. The key to the dressing’s moisture, though, is four cans of soup—two cream of mushroom and two cream of chicken.
While these dishes are Delk Adams’s most essential, here are 21 more soul food recipes to dive into, including Southern dinners, sides and desserts.
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8. Southern Black Eyed Peas
New Year’s Day is incomplete in the South without a pot of these on the table. While Sephardic Jews brought the recipe to Georgia in the 18th century, the dish became a symbol of emancipation for African Americans after the Civil War.
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9. Sweet Tea Fried Chicken
Don’t get us wrong—Jocelyn’s standard fried chicken recipe is beyond mouthwatering. But we love this creative mashup of two Southern classics, where the sweet tea is used as a brine.
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10. Fried Green Tomatoes
Green tomatoes can hold their own against a deep fryer, while red tomatoes are too soft and ripe. These beauties are crunchy and savory on the outside, tart and soft on the inside.
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17. Hush Puppies
Jocelyn puts it perfectly: “Hush puppies are to fried fish what peanut butter is to jelly.” If you’ve never tried hush puppies, they’re basically like little cornbread fritters.
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19. Southern Creamed Corn
OK, ready to have your mind blown? Take out your Bundt pan, stand the corn cob on the center whole and slice off the kernels for a mess-free mise en place.
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23. Southern Chess Pie
While this treat hails from England originally, it’s now a Virginia mainstay. It’s basically egg custard in pie crust. (If you’re going to make your own crust, go for this recipe, which calls for both shortening and butter.)
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24. Homemade Banana Pudding
Go the extra mile by spritzing the bananas with citrus juice so they don’t brown (and, while you’re at it, don’t skip the broiled meringue topper either).
