I LOVE cheese grits! And I love that I can now make them with freshly milled corn instead of buying the dead stuff from the store.
In the South, cheese grits are served for breakfast with eggs, toast, etc and also with a wonderful fish fry.
Try these and you’ll love them.
Southern Cheese Grits with Freshly Milled Corn
A Southern staple, but we're doing it the old fashioned way! You own freshly milled grits, right at home!
Ingredients
- 1 cup coarsely milled corn mill 1 1/2 - 2 cups of corn on a coarse setting to achieve grits; white or yellow dent corn.
- 3 cups water
- 1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese grate it yourself! Do not use pre-shredded cheese, it does not melt properly. You can also just cut up the cheese in small bits, it will just take a bit longer to melt.
- 2 TB butter
- 1/2 TB salt
Instructions
- Mill the corn in a blender or grain mill on a coarse setting. You do not want fine flour. Grits are suppose to be coarse about the size of coarse salt.
- After milling, sift out the fine corn flour in a fine mesh sieve. You need to get most of the fine corn flour out otherwise grits will be too gelatinous. Save the corn flour in your freezer to use for cornbread.
- After sifting, measure out 1 full cup of grits.
- While sifting, pour 3 cups of water in a pot and bring to a boil on the stove.
- When water comes to a full boil, slowly add grits to pot while stirring with a whisk vigorously to ensure no lumps form.
- When all grits have been added, cover with lid and turn down temperature to low. For the first 5-15 minutes, whisk grits every 30 seconds to a minute to make sure they do not stick to the bottom of the pot and they don't get lumpy.
- After the above amount of time and grits are halfway cooked, you do not have to stir them as often. Let simmer for about 30-45 minutes total until grits are cooked.
- While grits are cooking, grate the sharp cheddar cheese and get your butter and salt ready.
- When grits are done or mostly done, add grated cheese, salt, and butter to the pot and stir.
- Once all cheese and butter have been melted and incorporated into the grits, they are done!
- Serve and enjoy!
Notes
To mill grits:
Regular impact mills (the Nutrimill Classic and the Wondermill) cannot grind grits on this coarse of a setting. Stone grain mills are the best or a powerful blender like the Vitamix or Blendtec.
Regular impact mills (the Nutrimill Classic and the Wondermill) cannot grind grits on this coarse of a setting. Stone grain mills are the best or a powerful blender like the Vitamix or Blendtec.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Thank you for shedding light on freshly milled grits! My mill grinds finer than gritty grits but who cares, their awesome! I use homemade chicken broth for the water and spice it up a bit by using cheddar and pepper jack! Yum!
Oh that does sound delicious!
Good post.
I would love to grind my corn to make grits, cornmeal,bread flours and soft wheat flours to make pastries. I am a newbie so purchased a cheap hand grinder I can’t get it fine enough for a decent flour but it would likely make good grits. Please recommend a mill that won’t break me but would do all of the above without having to regrind over and over. Thanks, btw your bread recipe is great.
I suggest watching my video all about choosing a grain mill! You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/oM6k-htoP88
Do you use an instant pot? If love for try this recipe in it. Thank you for noting that not all mills are appropriate for corn. I’ll use the Vitamin instead.
I do not have an Instant Pot so I’m not sure how this recipe would work in it.