Buttermilk

Fluffy ricotta pancakes + Quick blueberry sauce = Other pancake recipes don’t stand a chance.

The egg-enriched buttermilk mixture makes for an especially crunchy and craggy coating. This recipe is from Buxton Hall, one of the Hot 10, America’s Best New Restaurants 2016.

Ideal for fresh blueberries in the summer or frozen blueberries all year long, this fruit-studded coffee cake is a winner any time you make it.

A bit of almond meal gives this ultrarich chocolate cake an airy but toothsome crumb.

If 6 Tbsp. of cayenne gives you pause, note: this is what Hattie B’s considers medium.

Quartering and stacking the dough creates lots of flaky layers that beg to be pulled apart and slathered with softened butter. 

With crunch from toasted walnuts and an optional boozy punch from rum-plumped raisins, this is the only carrot cake recipe you’ll ever need.

One bite is all it takes to fall in love with this extra-plush, cardamom-scented cake.

This boozy pie tastes like a Hallmark Christmas movie—you know, in the best way.

Laced with plenty of black pepper, this bright mayo-and-vinegar-based sauce is a trademark of Alabama barbecue.

This chicken is juicy, tender, and never ever dry—thanks to the tannins in black tea, plus a sneaky pinch of baking soda.

Airy with an outer shell that is crunchy like toast and perfumed like sweet eggy heaven—this is a waffle worth waiting for. 

This cornbread recipe gets everything you want out of the simple sidekick: It’s easy to cut, not too sweet, and it holds together.

Yes, the convivial festival favorite can be recreated at home. This one’s even more fun with a ginger-tinged glaze and a shower of pulverized berries.

Buttermilk-soaked catfish gets superlatively crispy thanks to a rice-flour dredge, a tasty nod to both Juneteenth and Black fish-fry food traditions.

Meet your new picnic go-to. This tangy-coleslaw-meets-creamy-pasta-salad features a nutty sauce inspired by Japanese goma, or toasted sesame, dressing.

A slice of this spiced cake with buttermilk-cinnamon glaze feels like a warm hug, and the best part is, it takes less than an hour to make.

This one-pot dish is fallback comfort food—thick black-pepper-spiked chicken stew topped with tender, fluffy dumplings. 

With six layers of spice cake and an orchard’s worth of apple butter, this Appalachian apple stack cake IS the party.

An herbaceous hot sauce buttermilk soak and cornstarch-flour dredge are the keys to this juicy, flavor-packed fried chicken.

Free up your oven and make the case for crispy, crunchy, sage and thyme-y fried chicken this Thanksgiving.

Enjoy the best of both worlds with this savory mash-up that plays well as a side on the holiday table—or as the star that it is.

This recipe for homemade chicken and dumplings has tender shredded chicken, just the right amount of vegetables, and light, fluffy dumplings.

Biscuits and gravy, reimagined by L.A.’s Yangban Society to feature lofty buttermilk biscuits with rich curry gravy made with curry roux blocks (kare).