Dutch Oven Cornbread with Green Chiles
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Featuring green chiles and sharp cheddar cheese, this Dutch oven cornbread recipe takes camp comfort food to the next level.
Cornbread is one of our favorite autumn camping foods. Usually, we make it using our campfire skillet cornbread technique, but if we want a nice crisp on the top of the bread, then it’s time to fire up the Dutch oven. Nothing bakes cornbread to golden perfection like a Dutch oven!
This recipe is super simple to pull together. At home, you can mix together the dry ingredients and store them in a sealable container or baggie.
Then, in camp, while you prepare your coals, you mix the dry ingredients with some milk, an egg, and a bit of honey.
While we love a slice of plain cornbread with a bowl of chili, there are countless ways to upgrade cornbread to make it something unique.
One iteration we’ve been playing around with is a spicy green chile and cheddar cheese cornbread. This might not please the cornbread purists in the audience, but we are not opposed to dressing our cornbread on certain occasions…
One such occasion is the autumn chile harvest. Towards the end of the summer, tons of green chiles are harvested throughout the southwest and distributed all over the country – the most famous being the Hatch Chile harvest.
If you can get your hands on some fresh Hatch chiles, consider yourself lucky. But if you’re a little late, there are still plenty of canned and frozen options you can pick up from your local grocery store.
The result is a spicy, cheesy cornbread with a lightly browned top that is perfect for pairing with a hearty bowl of brisket chili, black bean chili, or one of these Southern cast iron skillet recipes on your next fall camping trip.
Hands down, the most versatile piece of camp cookware we own is a Dutch oven. This piece of equipment opens up a whole new world of cooking options: you can cook stews, bake lasagna, braise chicken, and of course, make this cornbread recipe! It can be used on a camp stove or directly over the fire.
The short legs and rimmed lid allow you to place embers/coals on top as well as underneath, cooking your meal from both directions. Learn everything you need to know about Dutch oven cooking here!
More Dutch oven recipes
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 cup cornmeal
- ½ cup flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 (4 oz) can green chiles, drained
- ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 tablespoons butter
Instructions
- Light 24 charcoal briquettes or start a campfire if you want to use wood embers.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the milk, egg, and honey together. Add the dry ingredients (cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt) and stir until combined.
- Move 7 of the charcoals or embers into a ring and place the Dutch oven on top. Once hot, add the butter to melt. After the butter has melted, pour in the cornmeal batter. Sprinkle the green chiles and cheese over the top.
- Cover the Dutch oven and place the remaining 17 charcoals or embers on top of the lid to create an oven heat of about 425 degrees. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the middle of the cornbread has cooked through and the top is beginning to brown.
- Carefully remove from the heat, serve & enjoy!
Notes
EQUIPMENT NEEDED
Mixing bowlSpoon or whisk
Measuring cups + spoons
10-inch Dutch oven + lid
Lid lifter and/or heatproof gloves
Metal tongs or shovel for moving coals
I would like to make this at home. How should I adapt it for my oven?
Make the batter the same, pour it into a bread pan or Dutch oven without covering, place in a 350-degree oven. Now, we’re not positive about the time, because we haven’t’ tried this method before, but I’d suspect probably 18-20 minutes. Keep an eye on it.
Will you get the same results in a 12″ or are there adjustments needed? Thank you.
If using a 12″ Dutch oven, you will want to x1.5 the recipe or even x2.
What size dutch oven did you use for this amount? I have a 12″ dutch oven and want to scale this up to fill it; I was thinking about doing 1.5 more, maybe double batch.
We used a 10″ 4 quart Dutch oven. If you have a 12″, then you will want to scale it up at least 1.5, but double will probably work as well.
Yum!!!! Had it on the side with some trout and was delicious. We used the recommended amount of coals and after checking with our thermal thermometer- the temperatures were pretty spot on! Would definitely try this again!
Anna Lisa – so glad to hear you enjoyed this recipe! Good call checking the temp using the thermal thermometer; Dutch oven cooking is definitely an imperfect science so it’s always good to double check the temp!
Delicious!! Just made this in a Dutch oven on the stovetop in my house, using low heat. Eventually I turned it up to 2-3 for a bit at the end (still feeling out exact temperatures, but it worked great! Thanks!
FYI- used chipotle cheddar, highly recommend. Also, made it gluten free by subbing in gf all purpose flour blend for flour, and used 1 tsp of “Not xanthan not guar” (I’ve found that stuff to be a GAME changer in GF baking) Used 1 flax egg instead of egg, and almond milk for milk. A+!
How many people would this serve? We have a big group of 10 people.
As written, this recipe makes 6 slices. You could double the recipe, but you would also need another 10″ Dutch oven. You could also try doubling the recipe and using one 12″ Dutch oven. Each slice will be thicker, but that should work too.