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Scallion Cornmeal Waffles
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- Total Time
- 30 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
- 1cup fine white cornmeal
- ½cup all-purpose flour
- 2tablespoons dark brown sugar
- 1teaspoon baking powder
- ¼teaspoon red-pepper flakes
- ¼teaspoon kosher salt
- 2large eggs
- 1⅓cups full-fat buttermilk
- 4scallions, trimmed and cut on an angle into ¾-inch pieces (about ½ cup)
- 1tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- Nonstick cooking spray, as needed
- Berry-Jam Fried Chicken (optional), maple syrup, powdered sugar, berry jam and butter, for serving
Preparation
- Step 1
In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, red-pepper flakes and salt and whisk well.
- Step 2
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs well, then stir in the buttermilk, scallions and olive oil. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and whisk to combine.
- Step 3
Heat the waffle iron according to the manufacturer’s instructions and coat the iron with nonstick spray as needed. (Some waffle irons are nonstick and might not need to be sprayed or brushed with fat.) Ladle in about ¾ cup of batter and heat until cooked through. Waffle doneness is similar to toast: For waffles with more than a few toppings and protein, cook until golden.
- Step 4
Transfer cooked waffles to a large baking sheet. (The waffles can be made ahead, cooled and stored in the freezer. You can reheat them in the oven at 400 degrees for 5 minutes.)
- Step 5
Top warm waffles with a piece of fried chicken or crispy tofu, if you like, along with maple syrup. Using a tea strainer, sprinkle with powdered sugar. Using a small melon baller, top with a scoop of berry jam and butter.
Private Notes
Cooking Notes
Turned out great. One change by necessity: used medium-grind yellow cornmeal since fine-ground white cornmeal wasn’t available locally. The recipe is sound and overcame the change. Also used an inexpensive waffle maker and the recipe produced five 6-1/2” waffles. One trick I use with buttermilk cornbread is to beat the ingredients together as directed, let it sit for a few minutes for good absorption, and then beat it once again thoroughly just before cooking. Worked with this.
I’ve always been taught to use baking SODA when cooking with buttermilk. From a southern cook.
I only had yellow cornmeal, so I don’t know if that affected the flavor, but this was not for me. I would rather use my standard waffle recipe with the fried chicken (which itself was excellent).
Wow! Like a scallion pancake, my favorite!
Waffles generally need more sugar and fat than pancakes to aid them in browning and crisping up, so to turn these into pancakes, you can remove most or all of the oil and sugar. I'd suggest starting with halving it, so reduce to 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1 ½ teaspoons of olive oil.
It sounds like you might've used coarse cornmeal, which would take longer to hydrate, resulting in a thinner batter, and wouldn't hold together as well during cooking.
I thought the batter looked very thin so I added flour 1/4 cup at a time until the consistency was what I'm used to for waffles.
I made this with yoghurt instead of buttermilk, and with polenta style cornmeal. The batter was fairly thick and, with some normal greasing, did not stick to the waffle iron at all. In fact, these came out crispier and more golden than my regular breakfast waffles ever do. I hope this solves some of the "batter is too liquid" issues some have experienced. :)
Added approx 1/4 cup of flour and 1/2 stick of butter. Waffles had perfect rise... approx 1” thick.
Utter failure of a recipe. Batter came out much thinner than normal waffle batter. Used 1/2 cup in the waffle iron as that's always been the right amount for mine. The waffle tried to stick to both sides off the waffle iron (and this is one where nothing ever sticks!) and tore itself in half. Was able to get less than half the waffle out in large enough pieces to eat, the rest had to be pried out after dinner with a butter knife. Tried cooking as pancakes, those didn't cook properly either.
This is soooo good!! we've made it 5 or 6 times in the past two months. Each time to recipe or as close as possible. Occasionally we've had to add a little extra milk. Or one time we added cheese, but it was too messy to clean off the iron. This is a perfect savory brunch waffle!!
Absolute wonderful recipe did not separate the eggs everything else as recipe called for my wife, fall in love with me again
Very simple, followed instructions exactly but added 1/4 c extra flour as advised in several notes. They came out great. Tastes like a waffel, other flavors are very subtle but i'm sure they will be great with the berry jam chicken.
We love savory breakfast foods, and this recipe met the mark. At the last minute I realized the jar labeled "Grits" wasn't the white corn meal I thought it was; thankfully I had purple corn meal. The waffles had a slight tint as a result, but were otherwise fantastic. We prepared the Berry Fried Chicken on the side. The recipe was fine, but going forward it needs serious tweaking (more spice, overnight marinade).
We made it according to the recipe, and then we made it again with the following modifications, which helped greatly (from 3 stars to 5 stars in our opinion): 1. Hydrate the cornmeal in buttermilk for ~5 minutes before adding with the wet ingredients. This helped create a tender waffle which actually tasted of corn. 2. Use 1/2 teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda, which will lead to fluffier waffles. 3. Finely chop the scallions to get them more evenly distributed.
I used regular ol' baking cornmeal and used someone's suggestion of adding additional 1/4 cups of flour until it was a good consistency (ended up using another 1/2 cup, 1 cup total), but I just didn't love the flavor. Needed more....something. Maybe salt. I wouldn't make it again, but were perfectly crispy!
Gets done much faster than my usual batter. Easy adjustment after the first waffle. Not as spicy as expected. Could 3x the chilli flakes.
These turned out good, I liked the taste of them and the texture. I may have used regular cornmeal so absorption took longer. My second batch that sat in the fridge for half a day came out better than the first. It does taste like it is missing something. Maybe a bit more sugar and some other seasoning to make it pop.
These are so much easier to make than scallion Chinese pancakes! What a delicious, savory flavor this recipe produces - I could see it beautifully paired with fried chicken or Nashville hot chicken! I froze a few regular waffles for snacks later. I also took another reader’s advice and added a little white cheese and turkey deli meat to the other half to make little wannabe croque monsieurs to be enjoyed later with raspberry jam. Thin batter = fluffy and crunchy waffles!
Side note: baking soda is in baking powder, but baking powder also has an acid activator.
I spoke too soon. I am revising my previously negative review of these waffles. I had leftover batter and I mixed in some diced sharp cheese, topped them in the waffle iron with a slice of salami and cooked it all together. When they were done, I topped them with thin slices of turkey and ham followed by heirloom tomatoes and ripe avocado. A bit of salt and pepper too. Really delicious. I am glad I did not give up on them. I guess there is a reason they are called savory waffles!
I really wanted to like these. But the taste did not work for me, at least as a stand-alone dish. I made exactly as directed and they cooked up fine. But the result is a very dense waffle, whereas I was hoping for something lighter. Most importantly, despite the heat from the red pepper flakes, the flavor was quite bland. Sad to say I won’t make them again.
I made major changes, I thought the original recipe was tasty but DRY. So, I separated the eggs, beat the egg whites to a near stiff peak and added the brown sugar, to make a meringue. I added melted butter, tabasco, rice flour, lemon zest, fresh corn kernels, a little more buttermilk, more salt. Combined the dry, added the wet, folded in the egg white mixture, and finally, the melted butter. Got a much better fluffy texture. Served with lemony sour cream, and smoked salmon.
Made this with the Berry Fried chicken and both were underwhelming...wouldn’t make it again
I tried someone’s trick and let the batter sit around for better absorption, but I was still not in love with these. In fact, I am underwhelmed by most waffles except for yeasted ones, which produce the best texture.
In the UK here, does this mean 'corn flour' for fine white corn meal? I used corn flour and GF all purpose flour and was a thin batter but the waffles were delicious.
It means corn meal. For USA, corn flour it more what we would call cornstarch. See my notes above!
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