List of foods of the Southern United States
This is a list of foods of the Southern United States. The cuisine of the Southern United States has many various dishes and foods.
Beverages
- Alabama Slammer - a cocktail made with amaretto, Southern Comfort, sloe gin, and orange juice, served in a Collins glass
- Ale-8-One - made in Winchester, Kentucky
- Barq's Root Beer - first made in Biloxi, Mississippi
- Big Red - cream soda originally from Waco, Texas
- Blenheim Ginger Ale
- Bourbon - made in central Kentucky
- Brownie Chocolate Drink
- Buffalo Rock ginger ale
- Buttermilk
- Cheerwine - a North Carolina based cherry flavored drink
- Coca-Cola - first made in Atlanta
- Double Cola - based in Chattanooga, Tennessee; also produces Ski soda
- Dr. Enuf - available in eastern Tennessee
- Dr Pepper - a popular drink in Texas before achieving national popularity
- Grapette - grape soda first made in 1939 in Camden, Arkansas; currently available exclusively at Wal-Mart stores nationwide
- Grapico - grape soda made by Buffalo Rock
- Hurricane Punch
- Lemonade
- Mello Yello - a lemon-lime soda product of the Coca-Cola Company, sold primarily in the South
- Mint julep - associated with the Kentucky Derby and The Great Gatsby
- Mountain Dew - originally made in Knoxville, Tennessee
- Muscadine wine and juice - usually homemade, though also commercially available from some regional vineyards
- Nehi soda - produced by RC Cola, including grape, peach, and orange flavors
- Orange juice from Florida
- Pepsi Cola - first made in New Bern, North Carolina
- RC Cola - first made in Columbus, Georgia
- Red Rock Cola - invented in Atlanta in 1885, predating Coca-Cola
- Rum - several small-batch varieties, primarily in and around New Orleans
- Sassafras tea
- Sazerac cocktail
- Slurpee - frozen drink sold by 7-Eleven originally of Dallas, Texas
- Southern Comfort - New Orleans based neutral spirit, with sweeteners and peach flavor added.
- Sun Drop - citrus drink found in northern Alabama, central Tennessee, the Carolinas, western Kentucky, southeastern Missouri, and parts of Virginia
- Sunny Delight - invented in Mount Dora, Florida in 1964
- Sugarcane juice
- Sweet tea - usually served with ice, lemon, and sugar, sometimes with mint
- Tennessee whiskey - Jack Daniel's and George Dickel are the two remaining brands
Breads
- Banana nut bread
- Biscuits - traditionally prepared with buttermilk
- Corn pone - also called hoecake, Johnny cake
- Cornbread - corn meal, wheat flour, milk, buttermilk or water, leavening, sometimes oil and usually egg; may be sweet or savory
- Cracklin' cornbread - has pork cracklins in it
- Hush puppies
- Gingerbread - known in some parts of the deep south as Molasses Bread
- Cornmeal mush - also known as Coush Coush in the Deep South
- Pumpkin bread
- Spoonbread - a traditional colonial dish
- Yeast rolls
- Zucchini bread
Desserts and sweets
Cakes
- Baltimore peach cake
- Butter pecan cake
- Caramel cake
- Coconut cake
- Fruit cake
- Hummingbird cake
- Italian cream cake
- Jelly cake
- King cake
- Lady Baltimore cake
- Lane cake
- Moravian sugar cake
- Peach shortcake
- Pig Pickin' cake
- Pound cake
- Red velvet cake
- Stack cake
- Strawberry shortcake
- Tipsy cake
Candies
- Beens seed candy - such as Benne Brittle, found primarily in the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina
- Bourbon balls
- Divinity
- Goo Goo Cluster
- Hay stacks
- Kentucky cream candy - a pulled candy that is prepared with cream; usually made during the colder months of the year when humidity is low
- Modjeska
- Moon pie
- Peanut brittle
- Pecan brittle
- Pecan Divinity
- Pralines - a specialty of New Orleans
Cobblers
- Apple Brown Betty - a traditional colonial dessert
- Blackberry cobbler
- Dewberry cobbler
- Peach cobbler
- Sweet potato sonker
Cookies
- Butter Pecan Cookies
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Moravian Spice Cookies - especially in North Carolina and Virginia
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Tea Cakes
Frozen
- Bananas Foster
- Blackberry ice cream
- Creole cream cheese ice cream
- Peach ice cream
- Pecan-praline ice cream
- Snow cone
- Strawberry ice cream
Pies
- Apple pie
- Black bottom pie
- Blueberry pie
- Buttermilk pie
- Chess pie
- Coconut Chess Pie
- Blackberry pie - from the native blackberry ripening in early summer
- Grape hull pie - scuppernong or muscadine grape pie
- Jefferson Davis pie - a molasses pie containing dates
- Key lime pie
- Lemon ice box pie
- Lemon Meringue Pie
- Millionaire Pie
- Mississippi mud pie
- Peanut pie
- Pecan pie - made with any variety of pecan. An elegant rendition of the dessert often served in Florida and Georgia uses the plump, perfectly round Elliot Pecan.
- Shoofly pie found in parts of the South where Pennsylvania Dutch settled, such as the valleys of Virginia
- Squash pie
- Strawberry pie
- Sweet potato pie
Puddings
- Banana pudding
- Bread pudding
- Chocolate pudding
- Corn pudding
- Grits pudding
- Indian pudding
- Lemon pudding
- Persimmon pudding
- Sweet potato dumplings
- Sweet potato pudding
- Trifle
Pastries
- Creme puffs
- Hand Pies
- Fritters
Meats, poultry and seafood
- Alligator meat - typically served fried
- Barbecue - typically pork or beef, but also chicken; seasoning and preparation vary greatly within the region. The most common kind is pork-based in areas east of Texas.
- * Beef brisket - popular especially in Texas
- * Boucherie - a style of barbecue common to Cajuns in South Louisiana where the pig is eaten snout to tail
- * Bull roast - barbecue where the head and feet of an entire bull are removed and the whole thing is slowly barbecued on a spit over hot coals; native to Maryland
- * Pork ribs - may be prepared "wet" or "dry" style
- * Pulled pork - popular in Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia
- * Pulled pork sandwich - a slow-cooked chopped, pork shoulder sandwich topped with crispy coleslaw or red slaw - small intestine of a hog
- * Chitlins and maw
- Country captain
- Crab cake - popular along the Chesapeake Bay, where the crab cake is typically not dredged in bread crumbs, and in Louisiana, where it typically is
- Crawfish - also called crawdad
- Fried chicken - usually flour battered and pan fried
- * Hot chicken - a spicy variant of fried chicken coated in lard and pepper
- Fried fish and seafood - battered or dredged in cornmeal then pan fried or deep fried
- * Calabash-style seafood - popular in the coastal Carolinas
- * Catfish - usually fried, whole or fillets
- * mullet fried and extremely popularly eaten in the Florida panhandle
- Fried pork chops
- Fried turkey - deep fried using an outdoor frier
- Game meat - venison, rabbit, and game fowl are most common, but opossum, squirrel, and raccoon also may be eaten, especially in more remote areas
- Grits and grillades - a Louisiana brunch staple
- Ham - usually pan fried, roasted, or smoked; varieties include "sugar cured" or "country"
- Ham hocks
- Hot hamburger plate - a slice of white bread topped with a hamburger patty, French fries and gravy
- Jambalaya
- Liver - usually pan-fried pork or chicken liver, but also beef
- Livermush
- Lobster, typically only eaten in Florida where the Caribbean Spiny Lobster and the Caribbean lobster are native; these may be split and seasoned with piquant spices before being grilled.
- Moravian chicken pie, a traditional dish from the Piedmont region of North Carolina
- Oyster stew, often eaten on Christmas Eve
- Quail
- Raccoon meat
- Reptiles and amphibians - most notably alligator and frog legs, eaten in much of the South
- Salmon croquettes
- Shrimp and grits
- Shrimp Creole
- Smithfield ham - a specialty of Smithfield, Virginia
- Souse meat, also called head cheese
- Squirrel meat
Side dishes and condiments
- Apple butter
- Barbecue sauce - numerous varieties throughout the region, sometimes even within same state; most use a primarily vinegar, tomato, or mustard base
- Barbecue spaghetti
- Cane syrup
- Cayenne peppers
- Chow-chow
- Cole slaw - cabbage salad/relish, typically made with mayonnaise and sometimes sugar, except in parts of North Carolina and Virginia, where it instead may be vinegar-based and savory
- Cornbread dressing - similar to traditional stuffing, but using cornbread as a base and prepared separately from the meat
- Cracklin' - fried pork rind
- Deviled eggs
- Goober peas
- Gravy - served liberally over meats, potatoes, biscuits and rice
- * Chocolate gravy - made with milk, fat, flour, cocoa powder, and sugar, served over biscuits
- * Red-eye gravy - made with black coffee and meat drippings, typically served with country ham and grits
- * Sausage gravy - milk-based country gravy typically served over hot biscuits
- * Tomato gravy - canned tomato-based, made in a cast iron skillet with browned flour, served over rice
- Grits
- * Cheese grits
- * Fried grits
- Hot sauce
- * Tabasco sauce - trademarked, aged hot sauce made in Louisiana
- * Texas Pete - hot sauce made in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
- Macaroni and cheese - usually prepared with fresh eggs and baked en casserole
- Mayhaw jelly
- Muscadine jelly
- Old Bay Seasoning - made famous in Maryland
- Peanut butter
- Pepper jelly
- Plantains
- Pickle relish - usually used to make potato salad
- Pickled or brandied peaches
- Rice
- * Red rice
- Sorghum molasses
- Watermelon rind pickles
Soups, stews and boils
- Brunswick stew - originated in either Virginia or Georgia
- Burgoo - served at barbecues in western and central Kentucky; similar to Brunswick stew
- Chicken sauce-picquante - chicken cooked in a tangy stew with tomatoes and spices, often served over rice; a favorite in southern Louisiana
- Conch chowder - mainly a specialty of Florida
- Étouffée - a very thick stew made of crawfish or chicken and sausage, okra and roux served over rice
- Gumbo - made with seafood or meat and okra; a Cajun/Creole delicacy
- Hoppin' John
- Low country boil - any of several varieties
- * Frogmore stew - made with sausage, corn, crabs, and shrimp; popular in coastal South Carolina
- * Seafood muddle
- Peanut soup - one of the oldest dishes consumed in the South; brought by Africans; mainly a dish of Virginia
- Pilau - any number of dishes which combine rice stewed with meat and usually including onions or bell peppers. The most popular is chicken bog. These dishes are popular in South Carolina due to the influence of rice cultivation on the history of South Carolina.
- She-crab soup - mainly served in the area around Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia from Atlantic crabs
- Tomato soup - stewed tomatoes, okra and corn
- Turtle soup - mainly a Creole dish in Louisiana
- Terrapin stew - a historical dish of Atlantic Coast states such as Maryland and Virginia
Vegetables and salads
- Ambrosia
- Beans - often cooked down with chunks of ham, bacon grease, or onions
- * Baked beans
- * Butter or lima beans
- * Green beans
- * Pinto beans and cornbread
- * Pole beans
- * White or great northern beans
- Greens - seasoned with some kind of meat or meat grease. The liquid left after cooking is known as pot liquor.
- * Collard greens
- * Creasy greens
- * Kale
- * Mustard greens
- * Poke salad - cooked pokeweed
- * Turnip greens
- Carrots - often "candied" with butter and brown sugar
- * Carrot raisin salad
- Congealed salad
- Corn
- * Corn fritters
- * Corn on the cob - boiled, steamed, or grilled; usually served with butter or mayonnaise
- * Corn pudding
- * Creamed corn
- * Shoepeg corn
- Hoppin' John - a traditional Low Country dish of black-eyed peas served with rice
- Mashed potatoes - called "creamed" in some regions
- * Rutmus - potatoes boiled and mashed with turnip bottoms and butter
- Okra - flour-battered and pan-fried or boiled, stewed, or steamed
- Onion - sliced Vidalia onion, whole green onion, and onion rings
- Peas - often cooked with chunks of ham or onions
- * Black-eyed peas
- * Crowder peas
- * Field peas
- * Purple hull peas
- Potato salad - usually made in the South with egg, mayonnaise, prepared mustard and pickle relish
- Ramp - wild leeks popular in the Appalachian mountains
- Red beans and rice - slow cooked, spicy kidney beans, served over white long grain rice, most often with a spicy sausage on top or incorporated
- Seven-layer salad
- Succotash
- Summer squash - dredged in a mixture of cornmeal and flour and fried crisp with a light to medium browning, or prepared en casserole, or made into pickles
- Swamp cabbage
- Tomatoes - sliced ripe, also eaten at breakfast
- * Fried green tomatoes
- Sweet potatoes - often "candied" with butter and brown sugar
- Tomato aspic
- Vidalia onion - a sweet onion grown only in the state of Georgia, sold and popular throughout the South
- Wilted lettuce - with dressing, an Appalachian speciality
Miscellaneous
- Beer cheese
- Boiled peanuts
- Chicken salad
- Confederate cush
- Creole cream cheese
- Fatback or hog jowl
- Frito pie
- Hoop cheese
- Muffuletta sandwich
- Palmetto Cheese - a brand of pimento cheese from Pawleys Island, South Carolina
- Peanut butter and banana sandwich
- Peanuts in Coke
- Pickled pigs feet
- Pimento cheese sandwich
- Po' boy sandwich
- Vienna sausages