15 Classic Southern Summer Snacks That Fit In At Any Cookout

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When cookout season arrives in the American South, two crucial things define your shindig: the folks invited and the food they bring. While the host handles cookout planning, that doesn't necessarily involve the actual cooking and serving. Well-spread outdoor tables become part master-plan and part free-for-all, with neighbors, families, friends, or strays toting in everything from mama's secret-recipe dishes to Uncle Bob's catfish fritters.

You can bet on revolving parades of classic Southern snacks and sides streaming from kitchen to patio and backyard nosh pits all day long. Not to be confused with all-American-style barbecues, which typically involve low-and-slow smoked meats, a Southern cookout is more about sizzling grills loaded with simpler fare like hamburgers, hotdogs, fish, kebobs, and freshly shucked summer corn. The real focus is on communal gathering and shared foods telling snippets of a person's story one bite at a time.

These elements most often result in a glorious mish-mosh of tasty dishes — at least where I come from in the Mississippi Delta, dubbed the "Most Southern Place on Earth" by historian James C. Cobb. That said, cookout snacks and nibbles tend to be unfussy, uncomplicated, and unpretentious — in other words, they "don't get too big for their britches." Here's a curated list of 15 traditional Southern snacks steeped in comfort-food nostalgia, ones that fit right in at any cookout.

Pimento cheese is a mini-matriarch of Southern dining, typically served as a dip or slathered between two slices of bread (specifically white Wonder bread, if you're going old-school). But when it comes to social gatherings like cookouts, this humble pepper-pocked cheese spread magically morphs into Pimento cheese pinwheels.

In the simplest versions, there's no cooking involved, just creating "wheels" with pimento cheese, cream cheese, and either flattened bread or flour tortillas. Cooked PC pinwheels use puff pastry or biscuit dough instead. Some even mix in herbs, jalapeños, chili crips, bacon, or sausage.

For generations, Southerners have loved grape jelly, evidenced by dozens of empty jelly jars tucked into countless kitchen cabinets to be repurposed for drinking iced tea. That's why nobody blinks an eye at something called grape jelly meatballs. They sit proudly on many cookout tables, routinely simmering in slow cookers for easy toothpick-poking.

The defining sauce, appearing in countless community cookbooks since at least the 1960s, comes from a mixture of ordinary grape jelly and chili sauce. Nowadays, it's fairly common to slip in extras such as barbecue sauce, sriracha, Worcestershire sauce, or even bourbon.

Southerners have a love-hate relationship with okra, mainly because of the slime factor when cooked in certain ways. Fortunately, pickling these little "lady's fingers" in a seasoned vinegar-and-dill brine creates a delightfully crunchy snap similar to dill pickles. They can be chomped unadorned or served on platters with crackers, cheeses, and dips.

There's also an under-the-table practice of letting the tangy, briny, pickled-okra juice drip over salty potato chips. That culinary curiosity is hardly a surprise in my own hometown, where our university's legendary sports mascot is a cheeky "Fighting Okra," costume and all.

Hoecakes are very simple (and very well loved) circles of flattened, fried cornbread. Legend has it the name comes from long-ago farm workers hoeing the fields. After a hard day's work, they used those hoes to balance cornmeal-batter discs over fire-pit flames.

Also called journey cakes or johnny cakes, they're now fried in hot cast iron skillets, sometimes with stir-ins of herbs, chiles, and corn kernels. Miniature versions commonly appear on piled-high plates at summer get-togethers, accompanied by honey or sorghum molasses for drizzling or "sopping."

Benne wafers landed firmly on our list of Southern snacks the rest of the country doesn't know about, and for good reason. These crispy, super-thin, sweet-and-savory wafers generally fly quietly under the radar as a simple platter-pleaser. They pair easily with everything from dips to cheeses or side-step nibblers with cocktails.

Benne is the West African term for sesame, which explains the savory, nutty flavor. They hold a solid presence in culinary circles of the Carolinas, where they originated in Lowcountry Gullah communities. But you can also order Magnolia Acres Benne Wafers online for extra cookout intrigue.

Peanuts will forever be associated with the state of Georgia. That's to Jimmy Carter, who went from peanut farmer to President of the United States. But when it comes to peanut patties, state lines don't mean a thing.

This old-school peanut snack is beloved all across the South for its sweet, slightly chewy, praline-like taste and texture. Crunchy peanuts are guaranteed in every single bite. Peanut patties may perch on the dessert end of a cookout table, but don't wait too long, as they usually disappear in a hot snap.

Pickled watermelon rinds are one of the most misunderstood delicacies in the clan of pickle-worthy Southern foods. The watermelon's juicy red flesh and hard outer skin get trimmed away to reveal a white cucumber-like rind, which pickles beautifully into a sweet and spicy treat.

The long-loved generational practice involves brining with distilled white or apple cider vinegar, sugar, garlic, and various warming spices such as cinnamon, cloves, fresh ginger, and allspice. It's a light, tangy, crunchy snack on hot summer days. When diced, it makes a tasty relish or chutney for complementing cookout finger foods.

Before slipping this into your cookout repertoire, first understand: Southern-style shrimp paste is not the salty, fermented Southeast Asian shrimp paste for making curries and sauces. This one hails from the Southern Lowcountry regions and is instead a fresh, light, creamy spread made very simply by blending shrimp and butter or mayonnaise.

The taste of this Southern shrimp paste can be customized to taste with hot sauce, spices, sherry, or lemon juice. At outdoor gatherings, it likely appears piled on sliced baguettes, slipped into crustless tea-sandwich cubes, or chilled as a spread for crackers or veggie-dipping.

Hushpuppies are invited to just about any meal, most famously as a sidekick to fried catfish. But these crunchy fried balls of cornmeal do just fine on their own, especially when served as a snack or appetizer on summer cookout tables.

That goes double when toothpick-speared and dipped in comeback sauce — a sassy, smokey, spicy concoction from my home state of Mississippi. The name implies that you'll always come back for more, but it's also a riff on the infamous Mississippi goodbye: "Y'all come back, ya hear?"

Having grown up with backyard pecan trees, I still dream of hiding in crooked tree branches, cracking notoriously tough pecan shells, and the glorious payoff of fresh pecan pies and pralines. But the simple, everyday practice of oven-toasting pecans is what really makes them a staple of backyard bashes.

The three core ways to serve them are: plain-toasted using butter and plenty of salt; candied with brown sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla; or spiced with Worcester sauce, cayenne, ground mustard, or Tabasco, a Southern-born sauce from Avery Island, Louisiana. Either way, you can't go wrong.

Regardless of where you live, fried pickles are one of the simplest snack foods for noshing with neighbors — and the most pucker-perfect small bites for communal tables. They routinely appear on appetizer menus across the South, but there's really no secret recipe to wrangle from a country cook.

You can make them at home using store-bought or homemade sliced dill pickles, soaked in buttermilk and black pepper. After that, deep fry them in a mixture of cornmeal and flour. Serve with a classic New Orleans-style remoulade sauce.

It takes a minute to embrace the idea of sour candied frozen grapes. That is, grapes coated in a blast of sugar and various optional ingredients like lime juice, citric acid, monk sweetener, or flavored gelatin powder before freezing for easy eating. Trust me, you'll welcome the icy shock for cooling down the tangy tantrum taking place on your tongue.

The classic Southern version uses local muscadine grapes, but any type works for your cookout. The tart green ones add an extra shock effect. Just keep them chilled over a bed of ice.

Backyard fig trees aren't as common anymore, though several varieties thrive in Southern soils and warm sunlight. However, California takes up the slack as the nation's primary provider of figs, ensuring that every cookout party can enjoy fig flatbread cut into bite-sized squares or strips.

Picture crispy flatbreads (store-bought is fine), piled with sliced, fresh, sweet, ripe figs. Then, add caramelized onions and your favorite crumbly cheese, along with fresh herbs and balsamic vinegar. Vino lovers can poach the figs in red wine for extra complexity.

Boiled peanuts aren't commercially feasible in today's world of processed, shelf-stable foods. Nevertheless, that hasn't stopped Southerners from filling those giant bubbling pots with "goober peas," a nickname immortalized by a famous Civil War-era tune.

You'll still find the soft, boiled legumes at roadside stands or gas stations, but it's easy to make them yourself for summer cookout snacking. Just plop the raw in-shell peanuts into pots of salted boiling water. Optionally, add Cajun spices and boil for about five to eight hours. Serve in warm, soggy shells, since peeling is part of the fun.

There's nothing more "country-cool" than throwback candies, especially at summer shindigs. That's especially true about MoonPies and Goo Goo Clusters, both Tennessee inventions. In bygone days, they stacked proudly on countless grocery-store shelves. With a bit of sleuthing, you can still buy them for your cookout.

You can find MoonPies at Cracker Barrel stores, Dollar Tree, and on Amazon, which also offers original Goo Goo Clusters. MoonPie's moniker famously came from a Kentucky coal miner requesting a snack "as big as the moon." A century later, the fluffy, chocolate-covered discs still hold sway.