Southern Food Overview: 18 Classic Southern Recipes

“Southern cuisine” is a term that refers to dishes and the cooking methodology that originated or evolved from disparate culinary practices throughout the Southern United States. Though Southern cuisine contains many unifying elements and themes, it is not a monolith: you’ll find variations state by state and household by household.

Southern food is the product of a vast mosaic of states, regions, and cultures, all bound together by history and migration. In the broadest sense, Southern food comes from these seven geographical regions:

1. 1. Appalachia: North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky
2. 2. Bluegrass Country: Kentucky and parts of Tennessee
3. 3. The Gulf Coast: Alabama, as well as parts of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida
4. 4. The Lowcountry: South Carolina, northern Florida, and the coast of Georgia
5. 5. The Mississippi Delta: A region that includes parts of Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Louisiana; home to Cajun and Creole cuisine and New Orleans–specific traditions
6. 6. The Ozarks: Missouri and Arkansas
7. 7. Tidewater: Virginia and North Carolina

“Soul food” refers to dishes traditionally made and eaten by African Americans; since African American culture is an essential part of Southern food, many quintessentially “Southern” dishes are also popular soul food dishes. What makes a dish “soul food” is its connection to African American culture in the South and beyond, while “Southern food” does not necessarily have this same connection. Modern food historians like Michael W. Twitty experience soul food through two primary lenses: ancestral heritage and connection to ingredients representative of that heritage, and dishes that have become canonical over time, like collard greens, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, and hot sauce.

Although the term “soul food” wasn’t introduced until the 1960s, its journey aligns with the Great Migration, or the period between about 1916 and 1970, when major waves of African Americans fled the rural American South to urban centers in the American Northeast and Midwest, and on the West Coast. As new African American enclaves formed in these cities, the juxtaposition and intersection of these communities with other disparate groups caused an interplay of food and culinary techniques that created unique takes on classic recipes and formed new dishes altogether.

Southern-style home cooking, or “down-home” cooking, is built on simple, satisfying, comfort foods that minimize food waste and highlight classic ingredients. Here are some of the best-known Southern recipes:

1. 1. Banana pudding: Banana pudding is a Southern dessert consisting of layers of vanilla pudding studded with fresh banana slices and vanilla wafer cookies. Original recipes for banana pudding called for a top layer of toasted meringue. Over time, store-bought or homemade whipped cream replaced the meringue. Some banana pudding recipes feature a crust of vanilla wafer cookies, like the graham cracker crust on an old-fashioned cheesecake. Other recipes simply call for layering whole cookies between the pudding and slices of fruit in a trifle bowl.
2. 2. BBQ: As a category, Southern barbecue encompasses grilled, smoked, and cured meats, as well as a vast array of traditional sides and seasonings. Many regions of the American South claim to offer the best barbecue in the country: Kansas City, North Carolina, and Memphis all proudly boast of their BBQ prowess. While St. Louis–style barbecue evolved alongside the Missouri meatpacking industry, Texas barbecue traces its origins to German and Czech immigrants who settled in the state in the mid-nineteenth century. Each style contains its regional variations and offshoots, such as Mexican-influenced Tex-Mex. Learn how to make an icon of the Texas barbecue scene, smoked brisket, with pitmaster Aaron Franklin.
3. 3. Black-eyed peas: Black-eyed peas are a soul food staple and an easy-to-cook, protein-packed legume. Also known as cowpeas or southern peas, black-eyed peas are native to West Africa and thrive in hot climates. Black-eyed peas are an integral ingredient to classic Southern dishes like Hoppin’ John, a South Carolina Lowcountry dish made from black-eyed peas cooked with rice and aromatics such as bell pepper, tomato, and garlic cloves. Hoppin’ John is a traditional New Year’s Day dish, served with cornbread and collard greens.
4. 4. Brunswick stew: You can find variations of this one-pot stew all over the South. Still, most Brunswick stew recipes feature a few key components: a tomato-based broth seasoned with umami-rich barbecue sauce and Worcestershire sauce, tender lima beans (butter beans), and either one or a combination of meats. The stew also features various chopped veggies, like okra, bell peppers, or corn. Chicken, pulled pork, or rabbit are the most common proteins in modern Brunswick stews (traditional recipes featured game meats like squirrel and possum), but the spirit of the dish is to use whatever ingredients you have on hand.
5. 5. Buttermilk biscuits: Buttermilk biscuits are a variety of quick bread made from flour, butter, salt, and buttermilk. Biscuits get their signature puff from two leaveners: baking powder and baking soda. They can be tender (more muffin-like in consistency) or flaky (with doughy layers), savory (with the addition of cheddar cheese), or sweet (with a hint of sugar). Serve buttermilk biscuits with sausage gravy, soft scrambled eggs, or as a side dish to various stews and barbecue dishes.
6. 6. Chess pie: This classic Southern dessert features a simple custard filling of sugar, butter, and eggs, poured into a single flaky pie crust. Its name may be an alteration of the word “chest,” a reference to pie chests (also known as pie safes), or cupboards that people once used to store baked goods before the advent of refrigeration. Like its sibling, vinegar pie, chess pie belongs to a family known as “transparent pies.”
7. 7. Chicken and dumplings: This stew is a hearty, creamy cousin of chicken noodle soup: a simple, savory chicken broth thickened with a bit of flour or cream, served with tender bites of chicken and boiled dumplings rather than noodles. Chicken and dumplings may feature various styles of dumplings: Drop dumplings are fluffy, irregularly shaped dumplings portioned directly into the soup from a spoon, just like drop cookies. Biscuit dumplings are quartered segments cut from canned biscuit dough, and rolled dumplings are neater, denser dumplings lightly kneaded on a floured surface.
8. 8. Collard greens: Though originally from Europe and Asia Minor, collard greens became part of the Southern culinary lexicon, commonly stewed in their potlikker—the liquid left behind after boiling the greens—until dark and soft. Serve a bubbling pot of collard greens with a hunk of cornbread or johnnycakes (flat cornmeal-based cakes) to sop up the rich broth. Learn how to make smoked collard greens with Chef Mashama Bailey.
9. 9. Fish and grits: Fish and grits consist of cornmeal-crusted fish atop creamy grits, a type of porridge made from cornmeal. You can make Chef Mashama Bailey’s fried fish and grits with many types of fish, including catfish, tilapia, whiting, trout, Beeliner snapper, or black bass. A rich gravy known as Creole sauce brings it all together.
10. 10. Fried okra: Found throughout the South, this crunchy side dish consists of fresh whole or sliced okra coated in buttermilk, tossed in a mixture of seasoned flour and cornmeal, and deep-fried in oil until crispy. Fried okra is a staple at some barbecue restaurants, served as an appetizer alongside other fried favorites like hush puppies, tater tots, and fried green tomatoes.
11. 11. Gumbo: Gumbo is a thick, flavorful stew from southern Louisiana. There are many different styles of gumbo, including gumbo z’herbes, Andouille sausage gumbo, seafood gumbo, and chicken gumbo. The roots of gumbo are in Africa, but ultimately it’s the culinary outcome of several intersecting cultures: broadly, African, Native American, and European. Traditional preparations often use okra as a binding agent, with proteins like chicken, shrimp, and crab added based on preference.
12. 12. Peach cobbler: Peach cobbler is a freeform dessert with a peach base and buttery biscuit topping. The name “cobbler” comes from the shape of the biscuit dough dropped in dollops on the fruit, which puff up to look like cobblestone streets. The old-fashioned fruit dessert dates back to the nineteenth century. South Carolina or Georgia peaches make the perfect filling for a summer cobbler. You can bake a peach cobbler in a baking dish or a cast-iron skillet.
13. 13. Pecan pie: Pecan pie is a quintessential American dessert featuring a mosaic of pecan halves suspended in a silky, sugary blend of eggs, butter, and a sweetener—traditionally corn syrup—held together in a flaky pie crust. Pecans originated in the Southern United States, and the nuts were prominent in the diets of Native Americans living in the area more than 8,000 years ago. Some theories have posited that French settlers in Louisiana conceived of pecan pie after local tribes introduced them to the edible nut.
14. 14. Pimento cheese: Pimento cheese (also spelled pimiento cheese) is a mixture of cream cheese, mayonnaise, and diced pimento peppers. You can eat this mixture as a dip with veggies, crackers, or pretzels or mix it into grits. Alternatively, spread the cheese on two slices of bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches. Pimento cheese is a popular condiment in South Carolina.
15. 15. Red beans and rice: Red beans and rice is a creamy, hearty Creole dish that combines red beans simmered together with aromatic herbs; vegetables like celery, onion, and bell peppers; and leftover ham hocks. The dish is traditional Monday-night fare in Louisiana, served alongside meats (like pork chops or Andouille sausage) or cornbread.
16. 16. Stone-ground grits: Stone-ground grits are coarsely ground corn kernels, or cornmeal, produced by stone milling. Native Americans were the first to eat stone-ground grits, which later became popular in the South. Today, the term “grits” describes both uncooked ground corn and a type of porridge made from cornmeal, while “stone ground” indicates that the grits have a coarser texture resulting from stone milling. There are many ways to prepare stone-ground grits, whether creamy grits, cheesy grits, or fried grits.
17. 17. Sweet potato pie: This classic Southern dessert consists of mashed sweet potatoes baked in a pie crust. Sweet potatoes became an essential source of nutrition for enslaved Africans, who used them as a replacement for yams, a staple crop in West Africa. It was natural that the tuber found its way into a European-style sweet potato pie in the South; pumpkin pie is more popular in the North.
18. 18. Sweet tea: Sweet tea is black tea brewed hot, sweetened with sugar, and refrigerated until ice-cold. It’s a typical drink throughout the Southern United States, especially in Georgia, North Carolina, and the surrounding areas. Sweet tea recipes vary according to region, family, and personal preferences, but the staples are black tea bags and sugar.

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