27 Southern Side Dish Recipes You Need To Try At Least Once

Southern cuisine is something that many Americans recognize but might struggle to define. You could rattle off some of the classics — biscuits, fried chicken, grits, fried green tomatoes, and beyond — but you might not be able to hit on a precise definition of the category as a whole. One of the reasons it is so difficult to pin down is that Southern cuisine is vast, encompassing everything from Creole and Cajun cooking in Louisiana to apple stack cake and dumplings from Appalachia. It stems in part from the culinary traditions of enslaved African-Americans and from the local ingredients, and it is often passed down from family member to family member.

Many classic Southern dishes can be classified as comfort food, the sort of decadent, tasty menu items that you crave while also recognizing that they might not be particularly healthy. Fluffy biscuits and creamy gravy, fried fish and chicken, and sugary sweet pecan pie are just the tip of the iceberg. But Southern cuisine can be healthy, too, especially when it comes to vegetable-based recipes like collard greens and succotash. We've opted for a mixture here to celebrate the range of options, so the next time you find yourself needing inspiration for a delicious side dish, let this be your excuse (if you needed one) to make it a Southern side.

Perhaps the word okra conjures childhood memories of unappetizing slime. If so, you might be inclined to skip the ingredient altogether. But before you do, try our recipe for pan-fried okra. Lightly sauteed, breaded in cornmeal, and fried, it's crispy and tender rather than slimy and gelatinous. It's also healthier than deep-fried recipes because it requires much less oil. As for the breading, it contains a pinch of cayenne pepper for extra flavor. One bite of the resulting dish and you might discover that you actually are a fan of this much-maligned veggie after all.

 Recipe: Pan-Fried Okra

Onions are rarely the star of the show, relegated to being the unsung hero in a flavorful soup or the backbone of a killer tuna salad. However, in this recipe, they are given pride of place. You'll need several types of alliums for this one, including sweet yellow onions (Vidalias, to be specific), red onions, shallots, and garlic. That might sound awfully pungent, but don't worry — the cheese takes care of that. White and orange cheddar provide a gooey texture and rich umami flavor, while sugar and cayenne deepen the deliciousness even further.

Recipe: Tennessee Onions Medley

If you have picky eaters on your hands who absolutely refuse to eat vegetables, might we suggest accompanying said veggies with cream and bacon? This recipe involves boiling the greens and then making a creamy sauce with smoked bacon, butter, onions, garlic, chicken stock, cream, and nutmeg. Once combined, you get a dish that is rich, silky, and full of nutrients. What's not to like? For best results, blanch the greens after boiling them. This helps preserve their bright color and reduce bitterness.

Recipe: Creamed Collard Greens With Bacon

Fried green tomatoes are a staple of Southern cuisine, but you might not have made them yourself. Maybe you haven't gotten your hands on the main ingredient yet, or were put off by the idea of eating an unripe vegetable. Whatever the reason, it's worth trying, especially when you're working with a recipe as user-friendly as ours. Aside from the tomatoes, you'll need flour, breadcrumbs, and garlic powder for the breading, as well as eggs and buttermilk. These are so simple that you can even make them in an air fryer.

Recipe: Easy Fried Green Tomatoes

In the U.S., pudding is often associated with dessert rather than dinner, but this corn pudding defies expectations. There are countless ways corn is used in Southern cooking, from cornbread to bean salads, but this option has the benefit of being more of a novelty and more decadent. Made with cheese, butter, eggs, and milk, it is rich and velvety, the perfect accompaniment to a meaty main dish. It's also full of green onions, providing a bright, savory counterpoint to the sweetness of the corn.

Recipe: Creamy Corn Pudding

Succotash might sound exotic and complicated, but in reality, it contains a medley of readily available ingredients and is a breeze to make. It originates from Native American cuisine and contains corn (you can use fresh or frozen for this recipe) and lima beans. There are many variations to the recipe, but ours includes green beans, peppers, cherry tomatoes, and a host of powerful flavors, including onion, parsley, smoked paprika, and sage. If you're making a meal that is skewed towards fat and heavy proteins, this is an excellent way to add balance.

Recipe: Simple Classic Succotash

There is no reason to relegate bread-based dressing to the Thanksgiving table. With a dish this delicious, it's worth enjoying year-round. And if you want a recipe that differentiates itself from the classic holiday version, this option is a delicious place to start. You'll begin by making the cornbread from scratch before covering it in a liquid mixture of eggs, milk, melted butter, chicken broth, and veggies, including shallots and celery. Keep in mind that you'll need to make the cornbread at least 24 hours before proceeding with the rest of the recipe.

Recipe: From-Scratch Cornbread Dressing

Another Thanksgiving staple, sweet potato casserole is just too delicious to reserve for the holidays. The sugary root vegetable might lend itself to the fall when baking spices and sweet treats are all the rage, but this recipe takes a different approach, leaning into savory ingredients rather than sweet ones. You won't find cinnamon or marshmallows here, just bacon, cheese, and milk. That said, there is some brown sugar to bring out the earthy sweetness of the potatoes, but it is not the dominant flavor.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Casserole With Bacon

If you're going to a summer potluck or barbecue, someone needs to bring potato salad, and with this recipe, everyone will be thrilled that that person is you. This recipe keeps things classic, adhering to that signature creamy-tangy combo that makes the best potato salads sing. You'll need potatoes, eggs, celery, mayonnaise, sweet relish, mustard, and spices. You can omit the eggs and opt for plant-based mayo to make it vegan. If you plan ahead, it's worth making this recipe a day in advance. Resting overnight brings out even more flavor.

Recipe: Classic Southern Potato Salad

Not all baked bean recipes are created equal. If you're in the U.K., you'll get a dish that is sweet and soaked in tomato juice. If you're in Boston, you'll get a dish with an earthy sugariness from molasses. These Southern baked beans are in their own league, packed with so much flavor that you could practically use them as a condiment. Cayenne, smoked ancho chiles, vinegar, maple syrup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce are just the starting point. Just make sure to leave extra time to soak the cannellini beans.

Recipe: Extra Spicy Baked Beans

Biscuits are one of the most quintessentially Southern foods out there, even if the Brits use the word for a completely different food. For this recipe, we take an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. These biscuits are exactly what you'd hope they would be — fluffy, tender, and generously sized. No fancy add-ins or revolutionary hacks, just simplicity and, if we do say so ourselves, excellence. The only slight variation is adding a few tablespoons of cornstarch to make the texture extra tender.

Recipe: Fluffy Southern Biscuits

Hush puppies don't have to be limited to one specific meal. They are so delicious and versatile that you could easily slot them into a breakfast menu, make them a quick afternoon snack, serve them as appetizers, or delight your dinner guests by presenting them as a side dish accompanying other classic Southern fare. They are also surprisingly easy to make. In fact, our recipe takes less than 20 minutes from start to finish. Even better, you probably have all the ingredients in your fridge and pantry already.

Recipe: Crispy Fluffy Hush Puppies

Black-eyed peas and collard greens are about as quintessentially Southern as it gets, and whether you've made your beloved version of the dish a hundred times or are new to the concept altogether, we've got a recipe that might knock your socks off. It's the sort of thing you'll want to employ on special occasions. The veggies are first sauteed in rendered ham fat and then simmered with the peas. Then, the greens are boiled, blanched, and dried in the oven. Last is the element that makes this dish truly special — confit egg yolk.

Recipe: Black-Eyed Peas With Crispy Collard Greens

If you want to make a classic collard greens recipe that hits all the right notes, we have just one. No gimmicks, just succulent hickory-smoked ham and tender, meaty greens. The rest of the ingredients include butter, onions, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and red pepper flakes for even more flavor. Keep in mind that collard greens take time to transform from reedy and fibrous to buttery and tender. With this in mind, you'll need to leave a solid two and a half hours for this recipe. Trust us — it's worth the wait.

Recipe: Southern Collard Greens

If you like creamed corn and fried comfort food, corn fritters will be a revelation if you've never encountered them before. They walk that mouthwatering line between sweet and savory, bringing a hint of dessert to the dinner table. To make them, you'll need vegetable oil, eggs, two cans of cream-style corn, flour, baking powder, salt, and paprika. The key to getting the airy structure of the fritters is whipping the egg whites, so you'll probably need an electric mixer to form the all-important stiff peaks. Serve the results with jam or maple syrup.

Recipe: Corn Fritters

The word moist might make your skin crawl, but this corn casserole absolutely won't. Rather than being dry or gluey, it is — and we're not sorry to say it — deliciously moist. Think of it as the happy medium between creamed corn and cornbread. You can slice it, but you'll probably need to eat it with a spoon. This recipe uses mayonnaise to give the dish its moist texture while also providing it with a tangy sweetness. This casserole is quick to make and can be baked ahead as well.

Recipe: Moist Corn Casserole

Southern cuisine contains so many different ways to make corn that enumerating them would be nearly impossible, but no list would be complete without creamed corn. It's easily purchased at the store, but, like many things, it tastes much better when made from scratch. This recipe calls for making the corn in a slow cooker because the results are more deliciously velvety the longer they cook. Luckily, you don't have to hover over it. Just set the Crockpot to high and let it do its thing for several hours.

Recipe: Easy Crockpot Cream Corn

This isn't your classic, creamy-tangy potato salad, and not only does it put a new spin on the humble root vegetable, but it also adds to the repertoire of green bean dishes as well. With the addition of the legume and the omission of a creamy dressing, this salad is lighter than your standard potato salad, but what it lacks in decadence, it makes up for in textural variation and flavor. The crunchy dried onions are an inspired addition, and that honey mustard dressing takes it to a whole new level.

Recipe: Green Bean Potato Salad

One of the hallmarks of Southern cuisine is in its pairing of healthy ingredients with more indulgent ones. Green bean casseroles swimming in creamy mushrooms, collards cooked in bacon grease, and deep-fried chicken are just some of the ways this juxtaposition is employed, and you can now add green beans and bacon to that storied lineup. This recipe is easy to make and stunning to look at. In fact, it will probably steal the spotlight from the main dish. Sprinkle it with brown sugar and garlic powder, and your guests will be begging for seconds.

Recipe: Bacon-Wrapped Green Beans

Classic recipes are classics for a reason — they are so delicious that people keep making them year after year, generation after generation. Green bean casserole falls squarely into classic territory. Although it is known for its place on the Thanksgiving table, it doesn't have to be seasonal. This recipe is easy, calling for frozen green beans and canned mushroom soup. The secret ingredient? A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, which adds savory, salty, sweet, and tangy notes.

Recipe: Classic Green Bean Casserole

Another Thanksgiving classic, candied yam casserole could just as easily be served in early October as late November. It might even help get you into the fall spirit alongside that pumpkin spice latte. This recipe is so sweet that it can double up as a dessert, making it one of the most versatile dishes out there. Sweet potato, marshmallows, graham cracker crust, sugar, salt, vanilla, and pecans are all you need, and if you're juggling multiple dishes, you can easily make it ahead of time to cut back on on-the-day work.

Recipe: Candied Yam Casserole

Sweet potatoes (often called yams in the South) can be prepared in any number of ways, but this recipe allows them to shine in all their sweet, earthy, starchy glory. Because of this, it is also extremely simple to make. All you need are sweet potatoes, honey, cinnamon, oil, salt, pepper, and lemon. To make them, you simply chop the root vegetable into squares and drizzle them with a sauce made with the rest of the ingredients. It's healthy, delicious, and easy, a no-brainer for a weeknight meal.

Recipe: Honey Roasted Sweet Potatoes

Grits are about as Southern as any food can be, and people have strong feelings about how to make them. On a basic level, they are just corn or hominy porridge, but how you cook them and what you add to them make all the difference. Even if you have a dyed-in-the-wool family recipe already, it's worth giving this one a try. Sprinkled with cheese and baked, it produces a dish that is crunchy on top and creamy in the center, a treat for any and all grits lovers out there.

Recipe: Cheese Grits Casserole

Let's set aside the clever variations and go straight to the heart of Southern comfort food. The key to recreating a classic recipe is to do it well, because when you don't have any fancy ingredients to distract the eater, there is nowhere to hide. Luckily, this recipe nails it. The only ingredient that might be seen as unusual is cream cheese, which doesn't change the flavor very much but does add another layer of silkiness to the proceedings. For a sweet version, you can swap the garlic granules for brown sugar.

Recipe: Classic Cheesy Grits

Of all the grits variations out there, shrimp and grits might be the most beloved, especially for those from the Lowcountry of South Carolina or Georgia. This unlikely ingredient duo makes a more substantial dish than just plain cheesy grits and provides an added layer of sophistication to the dinner table. Our recipe opts for sharp cheddar to give a savory sharpness to the dish, while a garnish of green onions provides a pop of color and pungency.

Recipe: Old Fashioned Shrimp and Grits

Summer squash is easily overlooked in Southern cuisine in favor of more indulgent veggies like yams, potatoes, and corn. However, this recipe proves that this watery vegetable can be just as tasty and substantial when paired with the right ingredients, and by right ingredients, we mean cheese, butter, and sour cream, of course. That means you'll have a cheesy, velvety center, but it doesn't stop there. Fresh thyme, onions, and garlic salt add a punch of flavor, while breadcrumbs create a crunchy crust on top.

Recipe: Fabulous Yellow Squash Casserole

Creamed spinach is the type of side dish that can complement pretty much any main dish. If your centerpiece is dry and meaty, this recipe provides moisture and textural variation. If your main dish lacks color, creamed spinach adds a beautiful pop of green. If your main dish is already a little indulgent, this recipe provides one of the healthiest greens out there, albeit swimming in cream. When in doubt, just add creamed spinach to the menu. This recipe includes cream cheese to make the results a little thicker than the standard formula.

Recipe: Classic Creamed Spinach