Top 8+ Southern Foods That Are Better Homemade Than At A Restaurant

We'll leave these dishes to the professionals: mom and grandma.

Some foods are just better at a restaurant. Take, for instance, the specific delight of a dine-in cheeseburger, sliced in half with a serrated knife. Though I might try my hand at Smashburgers every once in a while, there's something about a burger I didn't make myself—paired with hot, crisp french fries, of course—that cannot be replicated at home. I’m happiest eating out at a restaurant when I know I could never replicate the same experience at home.

But when it comes to other dishes, I know better than to even think about ordering them. That's because some Southern home-cooked favorites are better left un-complicated, or even better, made by Grandma herself.

Cornbread

Restaurant cornbread is typically not made in a cast-iron skillet, and that makes sense—they've got to make cornbread in larger quantities, for which a skillet simply doesn't make sense. Unfortunately, that's a big no-no for Southerners across the board.

Instead, we'd prefer to make our own at home. Cornbread is one of those Southern food items for which everyone has their own specific taste and preference, anyway.

“I'm not a sweet cornbread person, and I also don't love the kind with kernels in it. I'm a skillet cornbread with a good crust and grit kind of girl through and through,” says Associate Homes Editor Cameron Beall, “and I don't think I've ever had a restaurant cornbread I liked more than my dad's!"

Deviled Eggs

A good deviled egg is a Southern host's secret weapon: wherever you put the plate of deviled eggs is where the people will be. Gathering and chatting and going back for more—that's an experience that can't be replicated in a restaurant, where everyone is seated and proper. Plus, the best deviled eggs are simple and special, and always have something to offer about the host, their taste (is there sweet relish or tangy dill?) and what they like to share.

Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheeses from restaurants risk one of two things: sogginess if the bread is too soft, or wreaking havoc on your hard palate if the bread is too crusty and hard. Enter the homemade grilled cheese, which never seems to disappoint.

Plus, Southern grilled cheese makers know that mayo works even better than butter to achieve a perfectly golden exterior—and Grandma might even throw in just enough of something extra, like Worcestershire sauce, to make it sing.

Cobbler

Part of the charm of fruit cobbler is its rugged look and uncomplicated recipe. I’ve noticed that many restaurants try to fancify this relatively uncomplicated recipe. No matter how tasty it is at a restaurant, the experience of eating a cobbler in a formal setting always falls short to the sweet memory of making something so easy to a grand result.

One of the first things I learned how to bake was blackberry cobbler, because it was so easy that a kid could do it: I picked ripe blackberries from the vine that grew in the hedges of the backwoods, and my mom taught me how to mix a batter of butter, milk, sugar, and self-rising flour to pour overtop. There are also plenty of recipes with even easier batter mixtures, like our Bisquick Blackberry Cobbler.

Mashed Potatoes

"Nothing like mashed potatoes when you're feeling blue," wrote Nora Ephron in the play, Heartburn. "Nothing like getting into bed with a bowl of hot mashed potatoes already loaded with butter, and methodically adding a thin cold slice of butter to every forkful."

The reason mashed potatoes are better homemade is simple: You simply can't be in two places at once, and she's right. The best place to eat mashed potatoes is in bed.

Tomato Pie

Restaurants may try to serve tomato pie, but the odds are stacked against them for success. That's because it's almost impossible to serve attractive slices of tomato pie without messing up the recipe. To preserve the "slice" look, restaurants often sacrifice the ratios of ingredients—and therefore the flavors.

"I’ve yet to have one at a restaurant that hits all the ratios for me with crust, cheese type and quantity, onion, and tomato," says Beall. "The onion is so important for that slight crunch texture amidst all the creamy and cheesy tomato goodness, and I feel it’s often overlooked."

Banana Pudding

Whether it's made with Jell-O pudding mix or a traditional custard base, the perfect balance of jelly-like bounce and creaminess in a proper Southern Banana Pudding is tough to strike. The Nilla wafers should dissolve like tiramisu ladyfingers into the pudding, custard-like and smooth. The risk of hard Nilla wafers or utterly soggy ones is too great to justify ordering it at any restaurant, willy nilly.

Pimiento Cheese

“Restaurants charge too much for pimiento cheese, and it’s terrible 99 percent of the [restaurants] I’ve been,” says Associate Food Editor Alana Al-Hatlani. “Catherine Jessee’s mom makes the best pimiento cheese in the South. It’s easily the best I’ve had. It’s because it didn’t have too much may. Not only that, but an absurd amount of cheese, which is the right way to do it.”

I asked my mom about her recipe, and she said it was, in fact, a Southern Living recipe! The trick up our sleeve: a combination of sharp Cheddar and extra-sharp Cheddar. The trick up my mom's sleeve: grating the cheese on both the fine and large holes of the cheese grater. She admits that she adds a little more of "this and that" to make it her own, too. I'd take it over restaurant pimiento cheese any day.