Grain Free Paleo Cornbread (AIP)
This grain-free cornbread is made without any actual corn! It’s paleo, AIP, and tastes shockingly similar to the real thing.
I love cornbread. I mean… not real cornbread. I loved the jiffy cornbread mix! You know… the one in the little blue box? Yep. That was my absolute favorite! I would eat it with a squeeze bottle of grape jelly and margarine any time of year! But of course, I always asked my mom to make it for Thanksgiving too! Cornbread is one of those things I just decided I would never be able to have again. I cannot tolerate corn, so how would I eat cornbread? This grain-free paleo cornbread is the answer to my prayers! It’s made with zero corn and is also AIP compliant.
I’ve seen recipes for paleo cornbread before that are made with almond flour… and that sounds delicious. Even though I can tolerate almonds, I wanted to make something that’s nut-free and AIP as well. Almond flour has that gritty texture that’s similar to cornmeal, so I decided to use coconut flour as my base for this bread. I like tigernut flour too, but it wouldn’t yield that light, cornbread color. Luckily, coconut flour made for a great texture in this bread!
You can serve this bread by itself as a Thanksgiving bread dish or you hold on to this recipe for later in the winter to eat it with chili, like my Instant Pot Chili or Pumpkin Chili! But honestly, I would just eat this by itself. I don’t need an excuse to make it. It’s that good.
The Ingredients You’ll Need for the Paleo Cornbread
Coconut flour
As mentioned above, coconut flour yields the best color and texture for this bread. I haven’t tried to make it coconut free, but there are paleo recipes with almond flour instead.
Arrowroot starch
You can likely substitute tapioca starch here, but I haven’t tried it myself.
Coconut milk & apple cider vinegar
Mixing the two of these gives the bread a bit of that buttermilk flavor!
Palm shortening
The shortening makes for a very cakey, bready texture that crumbles like real bread. I haven’t tried this out with coconut oil, but I doubt the texture would be quite the same.
Honey
Honey and cornbread are a classic flavor combination. All you need is 2 tbsp to get the flavor, leaving the bread not too heavy on the sugar.
Gelatin
You’ll need three gelatin eggs to make this cornbread rise. You cannot sub collagen, but you should be able to use real eggs if you tolerate it.
Grain Free Paleo Cornbread (AIP)
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 20
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 9 servings 1x
- Category: Sides
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 tsp coconut oil (for greasing the pan)
- 1 cup coconut flour
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp arrowroot starch
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp palm shortening
- 2 tbsp honey
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
For the gelatin eggs
- 3/4 cup water
- 3 tbsp gelatin (I use Vital Proteins)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F and line an 8×8″ baking pan with parchment paper lightly greased with coconut oil.
- Combine the coconut flour, arrowroot, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Stir in the palm shortening and honey until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, combine the coconut milk and apple cider vinegar. Pour the mixture into the cornbread dough and combine.
- For the gelatin egg, add the water to a small sauce pot and slowly pour over the gelatin. You don’t want any clumps, so lightly mix if needed. Allow the mixture to rest and harden over 2-3 minutes. Place the pot on the stove and turn in on low heat. Slowly melt the gelatin and remove from heat. Vigorously whisk the gelatin egg until it becomes frothy. Add the gelatin egg to the mixture immediately and mix to combine.
- Spoon the dough into the baking pan and evenly spread with the back of a spoon or a rubber spatula.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and carefully transfer the bread by moving the parchment paper onto a cooling rack. Allow the bread to cool completely before slicing. The bread needs to set or it will be gummy if you slice it too early.
- Slice into 9 pieces and enjoy topped with honey, butter/ghee (if tolerated) or jam!
Notes
All nutritional information are estimations and will vary.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 serving
- Calories: 275
- Fat: 9.5g
- Carbohydrates: 42.6g
- Fiber: 4.7g
- Protein: 7.2g
Made this last night! I made it with chicken eggs (reintro) instead of gelatin eggs. It was great to have a really nice textured bread like experience. The texture really did remind me of cornbread. Thanks for the recipe!
I’m really excited to try this recipe! I shop at Sprouts Farmers Market because that’s the closest “speciality” store near me. The only gelatin they seem to have is “Maca gelatinized” and “gelatinized Maca Powder.” Do you think that’ll work?
Thank you!
Sprouts should have gelatin in the supplement section! That maca powder wouldn’t work quite the same. If not, you can also get it on amazon!
Can’t wait to try this! Can you sub ghee for palm shortening? If so how much do you recommend? Thanks!!
I haven’t tried to sub out the palm shortening with ghee, but let me know if you do! 🙂
Hi there!
Can I ask why brand of coconut flour you use? I”m having problems with lots of my baked goods coming out gummy. I’m following directions exactly but it keeps happening. Not sure if it’s a brand thing or maybe I should be baking items longer? Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you! The flavor of this cornbread was great; it just appears to be gummier that what I can see in your pictures.
I like the brand Anthonys 🙂
Getting back now after I made these again and we had some at dinner tonight. I remember last time I made them, last Thanksgiving actually, the consistency wasn’t too good, quite crumbly. But after measuring out my coconut flour to 123 grams, which some say equals a cup, I actually added more to make it 145 grams. They turned out perfectly and held together when cool! Tasted wonderful as well. Now that I know the correct gram weight, I am confident that these will always work. I used an 8 x 8 glass Pyrex square pan for baking. Mine ended up being about twice as high as they look in Michelle’s pictures in this post. Hope something here will help you.
How do you store the bread? Should it go in the fridge?
Yes 🙂
Can white distilled vinegar be substituted for apple cider vinegar? Or plum vinegar? (Vinegar intolerance). Ty
I haven’t tried that, but it would likely work… I would just be careful about the source of vinegar. Distilled vinegar can often be made from corn.
These were really delicious. Thank you for sharing! ????
I’m thinking of trying this in cornbread stuffing for thanksgiving…Do you think it would be good?
Hi,
Can this be made with eggs? If so, how many eggs are equal to the gelatin egg mixture?
Thanks!
I haven’t tried it, but it would be 3 eggs 🙂
I did not do well with eggs in the reintroduction stage until I switched to soy-free eggs and do fine. So I put 3 in the cornbread and it turned out wonderfully! Thank you so much for all your work on the recipes. Often when I am looking for a recipe, your site pops up with the ingredients I have. And best of all, I have NEVER been disappointed with your recipes. Blessings!
thank you!!
I cannot tolerate egg yolks. Can this be made with just the whites?
Hi Lynn, the recipe is egg free. The gelatin egg is an egg substitute made with gelatin.
I can’t wait to try this! What sort of honey do you recommend?
Thank you! I just use a raw local honey 🙂
Does this have a strong coconut flavor? My siblings are so picky about eating anything that is distinctly coconut and I have a hard time baking for only me to eat:))
Not in my opinion 🙂