Makeover Monday: Low Fat Cornbread

Cornbread is delicious, but it has a bad rap for being high in fat.  Case in point, the southern part of our great Union.  I didn't eat a lot of cornbread going up.  Then I discovered what apparently the whole world already knew; cornbread is awesome with a hot bowl of chili.  And I do eat a lot of chili.  So now I eat a lot of cornbread.

I started my cornbread journey with a basic recipe from an old cookbook I inherited from my grandma.  It was good and I do want just a simple cornbread to take the edge of the heat of the chili.  But the original recipe was a little fatty for me.  Between the one cup of whole milk and 1/4 cup of shortening, I was potentially looking at a little over 7 grams of fat for piece one piece.  Compare it to a slice of whole wheat bread with its 1 gram of fat, and that seemed a little extreme.  

My solution to the problem is nothing fantastic, but I am here to proclaim the good news that you can make corn bread with way less fat, and it will still taste good.  I promise.  All I did was use a cup of skim milk instead of whole milk, and margarine instead of shortening.  That cut the fat to under 3 grams per piece.  That's better! And using margarine instead of shortening actually gives it nice flavor so you don't even miss the fat.  Sorry to all the cardiologists out there!

Homemade cornbread is also really easy to make.  Skip the packet stuff!

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Then whisk together the melted margarine and milk

Stir the wet and dry ingredients together just until combined.  Then just pour it into a greased pan.  See, this takes a grand total of about 2 minutes longer than cornbread from a mix. 

Low Fat Cornbread

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup cornmeal

4 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup skim milk

1 egg

1/4 cup margarine, melted

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Grease 9x9 inch baking dish; set aside.

Sift dry ingredients together.  Mix egg, skim milk, and melted margarine.  Add to dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

Pour batter into prepared baking dish.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.