Give Cornbread A Salty, Crunchy Twist With This Store-Bought Snack

Many people outside of the Southeastern United States don't realize how serious a dish cornbread can be. Sure, it's tasty served alongside chili, and it's easy to whip up the instant stuff for a quick snack, even when trying out some game-changing hacks to upgrade boxed cornbread. But for Southerners, cornbread is serious business. Fortunately, once you've settled on a family-approved recipe (sugar or no? Cornbread cooked in a cast iron skillet or cake pan?), there are a few add-ins that Southerners typically use to elevate the cornbread experience. If you haven't enjoyed Cajun-style cornbread stuffed with crawfish, for instance, you're missing out. Another less common but no less authentic addition is in the form of pork cracklings (sometimes spelled, and standardly pronounced, as cracklins).

It's pretty common to add whole corn kernels or jalapeños to cornbread, but mixing in salty, chewy meat makes every bite more satisfying. Bacon, crab meat, or ham all contrast and complement the granular, sweet-savory character of cornbread in beautiful ways. But pork cracklings bring something special to the dish: A Southern comfort food paired with a different Southern comfort food, that simultaneously feels like something dreamed up in a late-night dorm room and in a grandmother's kitchen during the holidays. Pork cracklings are a crispy textural surprise in what is otherwise often a cake-like treat. Think of it like nuts or chocolate chips in brownies. It makes the classic food much more flavorful and intriguing.

It's important to understand what pork cracklings are and are not. There are a number of snacks made from pork skin, including pork rinds, cracklings, chicharrones, and fatback or lardons. They are all related, and sometimes there is crossover due to careless labeling. But there's a difference between pork rinds and cracklings or most chicharrones. Where pork rinds are aerated, melt-in-your-mouth, deep-fried pig skin, cracklings are fried skins with pork fat and meat attached. They aren't as puffed up or as fragile as rinds, and their flavor is significantly stronger. Cracklings are something like a bacon-jerky-chip hybrid. And while it's hard to find cracklings in the grocery aisle (outside of the South), you can ask your butcher if they have them available or order something like Lanna Table Pork Cracklings to zhuzh up your cornbread.

Once you've secured the cracklings, the rest is straightforward. Prepare your favorite cornbread recipe to the point of baking and blend in half the cracklings (you may want to chop them into smaller pieces), saving the other half to sprinkle on top after you've poured the batter into a skillet or muffin tin. Feel free to blend in other ingredients and seasonings from whole corn kernels to peppers, too. Or buy seasoned and spiced versions of the meaty add-in, like Golden Flake's cracklins with red pepper flakes, to cover both bases. You can also make your own cracklings and customize the flavors. Refrigerate or freeze any leftovers, or break up the bread for a fantastic stuffing ingredient.