Meet Hot Hominy: The Grandma-Approved Comfort Casserole You Need To Try

During the holiday season, side dishes can feel more than a little played out. After all, how much green bean casserole can one person eat? And how many potatoes can one home cook peel for those creamy mashed potato recipes? But there’s a unique side dish option you may not have considered: hot hominy.

Allrecipes user oldcook uploaded a special family side dish recipe in 2019—their grandmother’s hot hominy. “Grandma always served this with Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners,” they wrote. “[It] goes well with turkey and dressing.”

What Is Hominy?

While I was intrigued by the idea of adding a new side dish to my holiday recipe arsenal, I admit I was pretty unfamiliar with hominy. What is hominy? It’s a grain created from field corn (maize) and, although it can’t be eaten straight off the cob like sweet corn, it can be processed to make it usable for cooking and eating. 

To make hominy, field corn is soaked in an alkaline solution during a process called nixtamalization. The process removes the corn’s hull and germ and causes it to puff up and double in size. Hominy can be purchased dried or canned—oldcook’s version calls for a can of white hominy.

What is Grandma’s Hot Hominy?

Oldcook’s recipe calls for a few simple ingredients: a can of white hominy, a diced jalapeño pepper, garlic, butter, sour cream, and shredded cheddar cheese. In a nutshell (or a corn kernel), the recipe involves cooking the hominy, garlic, and jalapeño on the stovetop for a bit, then combining the cooked-down mixture with cheese and sour cream before baking it for a creamy, cheesy casserole.

How To Make Grandma’s Hot Hominy

This recipe is pretty much as simple as dump and cook! All you do is dice up a fresh jalapeño and add it to a sauté pan along with a can of undrained hominy, and garlic and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 20 minutes.

Next, put the cooked mixture into a baking dish and add sour cream. After stirring everything together, top it all off with some shredded cheddar and let it bake at 350 degrees F until the cheese is melted—about 25 minutes.

I Tried Grandma's Hot Hominy

I tried this Allrecipes recipe in my own kitchen and was pretty excited to cook with hominy for the first time. Upon opening the can, I noticed the hominy was packed in a lot of liquid, which this recipe uses for cooking.

My husband and I were definitely not mad at this interesting and unique side dish. While the hominy had a slightly chewy texture, it was incredibly flavorful, especially with the spice provided by the jalapeño. With the cheesy topping, the dish tasted like a jalapeño popper appetizer, only with a bit more texture from the kernels of white hominy.

I paired it with some kielbasa sausage and roasted broccoli and the hot hominy made the perfect side dish. Clearly, oldcook’s grandma knows how to cook some canned hominy, and I was totally there for it. The dish only got better the second day and was even more flavorful and creamy as leftovers.

Would I add Grandma’s Hot Hominy to my holiday dinner table? Definitely, especially as a replacement for creamed corn or a cheesy corn casserole—both of which have made an appearance on my holiday menu in years past. Overall, the dish was a really unique take on a corn side dish, and it was a lot of fun to learn about a new-to-me ingredient.