Brown Butter Cornbread with Bacon (Keto, Gluten Free)

Looking for your new favorite side? This Keto Brown Butter Cornbread Recipe with Bacon will totally fulfill that cornbread craving with just a fraction of the carbs. Our recipe is totally gluten free, but it does contain some real corn! Don't worry, even with the corn added, it's only 2 net carbs per serving. This rich and delicious cornbread replacement will become a family favorite.

Disclosure: This recipe is a paid partnership with our awesome friends at Kiolbassa Smoked Meats! We are huge fans of their very high quality, amazing bacon, smoked sausages, and chorizo. This family owned company only focuses on using the best ingredients to make mouthwatering products.

Every product is slow-crafted in small batches. No fillers, just authentic recipes. You can always count on anything that you get from Kiolbassa to taste super amazing. You can also count on the quality. Their products are completely gluten free, and have a very short ingredient list. You can read more about their story here!

Now, onto the recipe! Since starting a low carb diet, traditional cornbread is one of the things we missed the most. Well, not anymore! We found a way to enjoy a replacement that is super tasty, and low in carbs.

Our version actually does include some real corn for flavor and texture, while still maintaining the low carb count. Add in Kiolbassa Smoked Meats Hickory Smoked Bacon and BOOM, a flavor explosion! Bake it in your favorite cast iron skillet for a crispy bottom and perfect flavor, every time.

Feel free to skip to the recipe card if you're ready to dive right in, but keep in mind that we cover a lot of common questions in the body of the text. You can also view this recipe as a Google Web Story!

Ingredients:​

• Kiolbassa Smoked Meats Hickory Smoked Bacon
• Unsalted butter, browned and cooled
• Almond flour
• Coconut flour
• Baking powder
• Kosher salt
• Sweetener of choice* (optional if you enjoy sweet cornbread, and to taste)
• Xanthan gum* (optional, but recommended to hold cornbread together)
• Eggs, room temperature
• No-sugar added whole kernel corn, drained
• Water

How to Make This Keto Brown Butter Cornbread Recipe with Bacon:

Start by preheating your oven to 375°F, and lining two baking sheets with parchment paper. Lay the bacon on the sheets, leaving some room so they can cook evenly and get crispy. Bake until the bacon is nice and crispy, about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool. Once cooled, crumble the bacon into small pieces and reserve some of the fat to grease the skillet later.

While the bacon is cooking, prepare the browned butter. Cut your stick of butter into small, evenly sized chunks and cook over medium-low heat until browned and bubbly. Set aside and transfer to a bowl immediately to cool.

In a large bowl, combine your almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder, salt, optional sweetener of choice and optional xanthan gum. The xanthan gum holds the bread together, but you can skip if you want. Just know that the bread may be more crumbly if you skip this ingredient. The sweetener is also optional, if you enjoy a sweeter cornbread like us.

Once the butter is cooled, add it along with your eggs, and whole kernel corn to the mix.

Mix everything together, adding between ½ cup water and 1 cup slowly until the batter is easier to mix, but still thick and spreadable. Don't add too much water! You want the batter to look like the image below. While you're mixing the batter together, turn your skillet back on and let it get quite hot. Add in your bacon crumbles, reserving a handful for the top.

Once everything is mixed together, add some of the reserved bacon grease to your skillet once it's very hot, then spoon in the batter, using the rubber spatula to smooth the top. This will help get a nice brown crust before popping the cornbread in the oven!

Bake at 375°F for 20-25 minutes, or when the top of your cornbread is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool for about 15 minutes or so before digging in. Serve and enjoy!

What's The Best Way To Prepare The Bacon For This Keto Cornbread?

Since we are using Kiolbassa's incredibly delicious and high quality hickory smoked bacon, we want to make sure to handle it with care to preserve the integrity of this absolutely perfect ingredient! Kiolbassa's hickory smoked bacon is premium, extra thick cut, and dry cured.

Since it's not pumped full of water like many other types of bacon, you won't experience much shrinkage at all. It's made in small batches, gluten free and with a short ingredient list that you can feel good about.

To prepare the bacon for the cornbread, we are going to put it on parchment paper on a baking sheet to reduce shrinkage. We bake it at 375°F for around 20 minutes until it's crispy but not burnt. We like to reserve some of the fat to grease the cast iron before adding the cornbread batter for extra bacon flavor later.

To crumble, you can use your hands to gently crumble it into small pieces, or cut it with a knife. It's your choice. You could also prepare the bacon on the stove, but we love the oven method because the bacon shrinks the least and cooks the most evenly, all while freeing up space on your stovetop.

Is Cornbread Keto?

Traditional cornbread would not be considered keto sadly, no. For many of us this is a huge bummer, since cornbread is probably one of the most loved sides of all time! Traditional keto cornbread contains cornmeal and often all purpose flour, which is pretty high in carbs.

Traditional cornbread also includes a lot of added sugar. Our version uses almond flour, coconut flour, a small amount of whole corn kernels for flavor, and some sugar free sweetener for that sweet cornbread flavor!

Is Corn Keto?

We don't really like to classify things as "keto" or not keto, and often times around here, you will find us bending the rules and still managing to keep the carb count low! Keto is a metabolic state. Keto isn’t a food!

Ketosis is basically the absence of carbs and sugars, and using fat for fuel in your body. While some foods are higher in carbs and sugar than others, we pretty much believe in eating what you want to an extent. When you’re first starting out with a low carb lifestyle, it might be easier to limit some things, but in time, we have found that moderation for us is key.

Using whole corn kernels in this recipe added that lovely sweet corn flavor, color, and texture. Try to find a no-sugar added version to keep the carb count as low as possible. We used a version that was simply corn, water, and salt, and for a ½ cup serving, it was only 7 net carbs.

In total, we added 1 full cup of corn to our cornbread (after draining away the liquid) and this added a total of 14 net carbs to the whole batch. Since this recipe is around 16 servings, you can see this doesn't amount to much in terms of carb count, in fact, per slice, this amounts to 0.875 net carbs added from the corn. To us, this is totally doable, and this is why you won't catch us excluding entire foods from our way of eating!

How To Make Brown Butter:

Brown butter is one of those ingredients that just makes everything better. It's really quite simple, and helps the butter develop a nutty, caramelized flavor. Truly, it can kick anything you're making up a notch!

To make it, add unsalted butter to a sauce pan and cook over medium-low heat until it's bubbly, smells nutty and is lightly browned. Be careful not to burn it! It's easiest to do this with a pan that you can see the bottom easier, something light in color. We actually used our cast iron, but we'd recommend using a sauce pan instead to avoid burning the butter. Here's some more detailed instructions about how to brown butter. If you do end up overcooking the browned butter, don't worry. You can strain out the dark flecks.

We do recommend standing nearby and stirring constantly while making the butter, so that you can avoid burning and keep a close eye on it. After the butter is ready, pour it into a glass bowl and let it cool for a while while you prepare your other cornbread ingredients. You will want the browned butter to be completely cooled before adding it to your batter, or else it will scramble the eggs!

Want to get supplies for this recipe or shop our keto kitchen or pantry? We've linked our favorites above and right here in our Amazon Store!  

A Full Living is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associate program, an affiliate advertising program designed to promote a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking products to amazon.com. We only share products we use and love. It doesn't cost you anything extra to shop using our links, but we earn a small commission that helps us keep this site going! 

Looking For More Recipes That Use Kiolbassa Smoked Meats Products?

• Cajun Shrimp Sausage and Peppers Skillet
• Easy Keto Fried Cabbage and Sausage Skillet Recipe
• Keto Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Chorizo
• Keto French Toast Pigs in a Blanket with Candied Bacon
• Loaded Keto 'Potato' Soup
• Keto 7 Layer Chorizo Dip

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Until Next Time,
Briana & Chamere

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