Add A Salty Crunch To Your Cornbread With Pork Rinds

Cornbread is one of those comforting yet versatile dishes that you can take in so many flavorful directions. We have a list of different cornbread recipes that contain everything from chewy figs to sharp cheddar cheese. Pork rinds, however, are the salty, crunchy snack that will bring cornbread into a new realm of both flavor and texture. Made of deep-fried pig skin, pork rinds are light and crispy, with a powerful punch of salt and savoriness. They're well-known snacks sold in bags like potato chips at convenience stores across the South.

Another equally popular variety of pork skins enjoyed by Southerners are cracklins, consisting of pork skins that retain a residual layer of fat. When deep fried, cracklins have crunchy edges and a chewy meatiness from the excess fat. Both pork rinds and cracklins are sold pre-made, and both would improve the texture and flavor of your cornbread recipe. Of course, you can also make them both from scratch, and we provide an in-depth explanation of how pork rinds get their crispy, puffy texture.

The way you add them to cornbread depends on whether you use pork rinds or cracklins. If you're using crunchy pork rinds, you can simply take a rolling pin to a bag of rinds to break them into smaller pieces before folding them into the batter and baking. For cracklins, dice them by hand or in a food processor and stir them into the wet ingredients before mixing in the dry ones.

Pork rinds and cracklins have similar flavor profiles but impart a different textural contrast to cornbread; cracklins will break up the coarse buttery batter with a decadent chew, while pork rinds will bring an airier crunch to lighten cornbread's dense crumb. Whichever textural contrast you prefer, you can pair the salty, savory flavors of the pork with the same diversity of seasoning and ingredients for even more depth of flavor.

For the ultimate savory profile, you could add cracklins or rinds to this cheesy loaded cornbread casserole with sour cream and bacon bits. Green onions and kerneled sweet corn would bring a nice balance of sweet and aromatic flavors to salty and savory cracklin cornbread. Pork rinds are also popular snacks in Mexico, known in Spanish as chicharrones. And with this in mind, you can crush pork rinds and add them along with jalapenos to cornbread batter.

Cracklins would be a really nice meaty, savory complement to this tangy and spicy green chile tomatillo cornbread recipe. Pork and sweet potatoes are a match made in heaven, so you could put a savory twist on this honey sweet potato cornbread with the addition of cracklins.

If you want to keep your cracklin cornbread simple, you can reserve the flavor pairings for accompanying dishes and garnishes. Pimento cheese would taste delicious if spread over a slice of cracklin cornbread, for example.