Cornbread Muffins are an easy, from-scratch recipe for homemade cornbread in muffin form. Naturally sweetened with honey, this recipe produces soft, tender cornbread muffins that are buttery and just sweet enough.

Whole Wheat Corn Bread Muffin cut open with butter and honey on top.

The Best Cornbread Muffin Recipe

The perfect cornbread muffins are tender, full of earthy corn flavor, buttery, and slightly sweet. The crumb on a corn muffin needs to be large, yet the muffin should not crumble in your hands.

Friends, I have created the PERFECT Cornbread Muffin.

These cornbread muffins are everything you want in a corn muffin, plus they happen to be super easy to make!

Key Ingredients

Buttermilk: Buttermilk is key to keeping these muffins light and fluffy. However, you can easily make homemade buttermilk by adding 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice or white vinegar to ¾ cup milk and letting that mixture sit for 5-10 minutes.
Flour: Use whole white wheat flour or all-purpose flour in this recipe.
Cornmeal: Be sure to use yellow cornmeal, not masa flour.
Butter: Feel free to use canola oil in place of melted butter.
Baking Powder: Be sure to use ALUMINIUM-FREE or reduced baking powder, as aluminum can react with the cornmeal and leaves a metallic taste in your mouth. YES! This really makes a HUGE difference!

How to Make Cornbread Muffins

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare a 12-cup muffin tin liner by greasing well or lining with muffin liners.
Melt butter and allow to cool slightly while combing the dry ingredients.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, and baking powder.

Dry ingredients for corn bread muffins in mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, honey, and melted butter together.
Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
Mix together until JUST combined. Do not over mix--this will help keep these Cornbread Muffins tender and light.

Pour ¼ cup batter into each muffin tin. Pro-Tip: Use an ice cream scoop to add the batter to the muffin tin.
Bake until corn muffins puff up and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Baked Cornbread muffins in red silicone muffin tin liner.

Storing Muffins

Leftover cornbread can be stored in an airtight container for up to 48 hours at room temperature. If you think the muffins will last longer than 2 days, I recommend storing them in the refrigerator instead, where they will keep for up to 5 days.

Alternatively, you can also freeze the cooled muffins by placing them into a freezer-safe bag or container and storing them in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Cornbread vs Muffins

If you would rather have traditional cornbread instead of cornbread in muffin form, prepare the recipe as directed and pour the batter into a greased 8x8 baking dish and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 25-28 minutes or until set.

Cheesy Cornbread Muffins

I love the pop of flavor cheddar provides against the buttery, sweet flavor of the cornbread.

If desired, fold up to 1 cup of sharp shredded cheddar cheese into the batter right before baking.

Shredded cheese being folded into cornbread muffins.

Dairy-Free Cornbread

Use canola oil in place of the melted butter and plain, unsweetened almond or soy milk in place of the buttermilk for dairy-free cornbread that is delicious.

Serving Suggestions

Cornbread Muffins make a natural pairing with chili and soup. But these muffins are also delicious served as a snack. Below are some of my favorite dishes to serve alongside these muffins.

If you enjoyed these cornbread muffins, I would love for you to leave a comment below.

Cornbread Muffins