Cornbread: A Flexible Recipe for Low Sugar! (2024)

This cornbread recipe began as just a “prop” cornbread for an Instant Pot Rib recipe, but has since become our go-to cornbread. It’s easy to make, and no one in our very picky family could find fault with it. (Picky extended family included!)

It’s also easy to make substitutions and add-ons as you desire, which brings us to today’s topic!

Tweaking our Cornbread Recipe

Cornbread is one of those recipes I could fall into a wormhole investigating on a casual weeknight. What’s the best cornbread on the internet?! You can scour for hours.

Similar to Caesar salad dressing and banana bread, I’ve been motivated over the years to find my go-to version to satisfy a craving for some corn-y goodness.

Here’s what I came up with:

But recently, my mom has had an interest in reducing refined sugars for health reasons, so one day, I stretched this recipe to the furthest it could go into no-sugar land, and came up with this new recipe!

A “healthy”-ish cornbread recipe

This is not to say that normal cornbread is unhealthy—but we took our previous traditional cornbread recipe and removed the refined sugar, substituting new ingredients we’ve discovered: date sugar and date syrup.

Last fall, we were invited to sample some Just Date treats made by Bryan Levy, author of Good & Sweet. Bryan’s book is an awesome lesson in baking with natural sweeteners. (Note: This isn’t a sponsored post.)

It was also a great introduction to a wonderful new ingredient that is exactly what it sounds like: just dates—ground until they have a granulated texture similar to sugar.

This recipe also opts out of the buttermilk in favor of a mixture of yogurt thinned out with whole milk. I’ve also thinned out the yogurt with oat milk (that’s all I had on hand), and it worked decently well. But if you have buttermilk on hand, by all means, go for it.

Storage

This date sugar cornbread will last for about a week on the counter so long as it’s a cool / dry time of year. If the weather is warm, cover it or place it in an airtight container and store it in the refrigerator. You can warm it up briefly in the microwave (30 seconds or less should revive it) or in a toaster oven.

“Hi everyone, Sarah here. Just wanted to drop by and say that while this cornbread might look somewhat unobtrusive, I was OBSESSED with it when my sister first made it for Thanksgiving, and then later when she blogged it. I couldn’t stop stuffing it into my face with Irish butter. Consider yourself warned!

Cornbread Recipe Instructions

In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter, date sugar, and date syrup.

Stir in the eggs and the yogurt and milk mixture.

Add the dry ingredients, and stir until there are relatively few clumps (don’t over-mix!), followed by the corn.

Pour a greased 10-inch cast-iron skillet or 9×9-inch square baking pan!

Bake at 375°F/190°C for 25-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

This cornbread is great on its own, but even better with a little pat of butter, of course!