I feel like every year I try and do a cornbread chili thing and am disappointed by how it turns out. There are a few things going on when you mix cornbread and chili, but I think the main thing to worry about is that cornbread sucks up all moisture around it. As it cooks, the chili gets dry and the cornbread oddly stays kinda dry!
This is the first time I was truly happy with a cornbread chili pie situation. I made a super fatty chili that hardened as it cooled, so it was ideal to stuff inside the cornbread. I also used a springform so it was easy to pop out and I could fill it with so much chili. I think the key though was this Martha Stewart cornbread recipe I stumbled upon a while back. It’s kind of an odd recipe to have on it’s own, and it’s like 50% sour cream, but it works really great for stuffing things inside of it! I used some corn flour as well as cornmeal as a way to make the batter less crumbly and better to hold all the chili in.
I let the chili cool on a baking dish so I could cut out rounds that would be easy to stuff into the springform.
Be gentle after it cooks! You could tell it was full of liquid.
I was inspired by lava cakes when I made these, so I also did a few with cheese. I wouldnt call the chili ones “lava cakes” but the cheese ones definitely were!
Top with all the good chili toppings before digging in.
Because I made such a fatty chili, the liquid level in the center stayed nice and high so that it was juicy and delicious when you broke into it!
Cornbread Chili Pot Pie
Ingredients
Chili
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1.5 pounds ground beef 80/20
- 1 large onion diced
- 3 jalapenos diced, seeds optional
- 5 cloves garlic minced
- 28 oz crushed tomatoes
- 3 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 pinch clove
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon worcestershire
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Cornbread
- 1 cup ap flour
- 1/2 cup yellow cornmreal
- 1/2 cup corn flour
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 3 cups sour cream
Instructions
Chili
- Heat the coconut oil in a pan and add the beef. Cook 5 minutes to start to brown. Add in the onion and jalapeno and cook 10 minutes stirring often.
- Add int he garlic and cook 2 minutes. Then add the remaining ingredients. Stir and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer for an hour or 2.
- Remove from heat and pour the chili onto a parchment lined baking dish. something around 9X9 is good, you want it to be about 2 inches deep of actual chili. Cover and store in the fridge overnight.
cornbread
- Preheat oven to 425
- Mix all the dry cornbread ingredients in a bowl first, then add in the eggs and sour cream and mix well to combine.
- grease 4 mini springform pans. Place a bottom layer of cornbread batter on each.
- Use a round object like a glas sor cookie cutter to cut out rounds of the colidified chili. It won't be fully solid but should be fairly easy to cut into rounds that hold their shape. Place round of chili into one of the pans with the batter on the bottom. Pour batter over it to cover and fill the sides. Repeat with the remaining pans.
- Bake about 25 minutes until cooked through.
- Remove from heat. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before popping out of the springforms. Top with sour cream, cheese, and jalapenos before serving.
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