Southern Comfort Food

From classic fried chicken to sweet potato casserole, here are incredible Southern recipes.

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Classic Southern Fried Chicken

In The Help, the character Minny reveres Crisco, calling it “the most important invention in the kitchen since jarred mayonnaise.” She uses Crisco to fry chicken to perfection, admiring the way the vegetable shortening “bubbles up like a song” as it cooks.

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Smoky Shrimp and Grits

Old-school Southern cooks prepare grits with an abundance of butter and cheddar. To make the dish less heavy, Grace Paris cuts back on the cheese, drops the butter altogether and adds spinach.

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Chicken-Fried Steak with Redeye Curry Gravy

Top Chef star Dale Talde serves his outstanding, crispy fried steak with a richly flavored gravy spiked with curry powder, coffee and Sriracha chile sauce.

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Hush Puppies with Remoulade

F&W’s Emily Kaiser Thelin created these crispy hush puppies—cornmeal dumplings—by adapting a recipe from chef Susan McCreight Lindeborg. Emily serves them with a version of the creamy French sauce remoulade, which she spikes with Tabasco and a little ketchup.

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Banana Pudding with Vanilla Wafer Crumble

David Guas, a New Orleans native, remembers this comforting dessert from the buffet spreads at family funerals. (Recipe adapted from DamGoodSweet.)

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Sweet Potato Casserole

Sweet potatoes grow in abundance in Alabama, where sculptor Sandi Stevens’ family eats them year-round. This casserole is a Stevens favorite: silky pureed sweet potatoes topped with a sweet and crunchy pecan-cornflake topping.

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Crab and Andouille Jambalaya

To make this jambalaya stand out, use incredible lump crabmeat, great andouille sausage and a good hit of Old Bay seasoning.

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Slow Cooker Barbecued Pulled Pork

Serve the pulled pork with coleslaw and pickles, or mound it on hamburger buns and top with coleslaw and thinly sliced onion and dill pickles.

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Creamed Collard Greens

This is the Rushings’ Southern interpretation of French creamed spinach. The collards add a pleasant bitterness to this lush side dish, but it’s important to shred them finely before you simmer them in the cream or they'll never get tender.

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Catfish Po'Boys with Pickle Remoulade

Jay Foster of San Francisco’s Farmerbrown’s Little Skillet does brisk business in these fried-fish sandwiches at Outside Lands music festival.

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Chicken and Biscuits in a Pot

The chopped fresh herbs in the biscuits that top this comforting chicken stew add another layer of flavor to the dish.

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Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Ice Cream

Southern red velvet cake is usually a tall layer cake, slathered with cream cheese icing and studded with pecans. In this deconstructed version, the cake is low (like a torte), the pecans are coated in caramel to make pecan praline and the cream cheese icing is transformed into cream cheese-flavored ice cream.

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Southern Baked Chicken Casserole

This is a slightly modernized take on the very traditional Southern chicken casserole Jennifer Nettles’s mother likes to make. The recipe swaps out the usual canned cream of chicken soup in favor of a quick white sauce. A dash of hot sauce is the perfect finish.

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Lemon Ice Box Pie

This silken frozen pie is adapted from Clancy’s, one of David Guas’s favorite New Orleans neighborhood restaurants.

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Fried Green Tomato BLTs

This is a brilliant marriage of two classics: cornmeal-dusted green tomatoes and a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.

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Skillet Corn Bread with Corn Relish

Corn relish provides all the seasoning required for this slightly sweet corn bread. The relish also adds heft, making the corn bread substantial enough to serve as a vegetarian lunch with a green salad and some sliced tomatoes.

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Georgia Peach Pie

When you slice into this delicious pie, don’t be surprised by the gap between the filling and the top crust. This happens when a pie is baked at high heat because the crust sets before the fruit in the filling has cooked down.

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Creamy Chicken-and-Mushroom Fricassee

“I love the word fricassee,” Andrew Carmellini says. He garnishes his with celery leaves.

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Shrimp Étouffée

Andrew Zimmern makes his rich shrimp étouffée quicker by using tomato paste instead of a roux. Plenty of butter and hot sauce give it a New Orleans punch.

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Minny's Chocolate Pie

Newspaper columnist and baker Lee Ann Flemming made 53 chocolate pies over the course of filming The Help. Her fudgy version here is as classic as it gets. You can make your own crust, but Flemming uses packaged.

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Southern Comfort Food

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Classic Southern Fried Chicken

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Smoky Shrimp and Grits

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Chicken-Fried Steak with Redeye Curry Gravy

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Hush Puppies with Remoulade

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Banana Pudding with Vanilla Wafer Crumble

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Sweet Potato Casserole

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Crab and Andouille Jambalaya

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Slow Cooker Barbecued Pulled Pork

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Creamed Collard Greens

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Catfish Po'Boys with Pickle Remoulade

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Chicken and Biscuits in a Pot

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Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Ice Cream

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Southern Baked Chicken Casserole

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Lemon Ice Box Pie

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Fried Green Tomato BLTs

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Skillet Corn Bread with Corn Relish

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Georgia Peach Pie

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Creamy Chicken-and-Mushroom Fricassee

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Shrimp Étouffée

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Minny's Chocolate Pie

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