I am here in defense of succotash. At its most basic, succotash is beans and corn cooked together with a creamy element. As far as I’m concerned that alone is reason to make this summer side dish.
It’s a great, comforting, and delicious way to plow through excess summer vegetables from your CSA or garden.
I further contend that succotash should be the official side dish of summer AND Thanksgiving. Serve it with my Thanksgiving shepherd’s pie or turkey and potato stuffing waffles for a low-key, laid back Thanksgiving
.
For ease of browsing, here are all of my side dish recipes in one place. Thanks for stopping by!
Playing Catch Up with My Southern-ness
I was born and raised in the south, but since my parents were both from Queens in New York City, I ate as a northerner at home.
Southerners ate biscuits. We had soft dinner rolls.
Southerners ate cheese grits. Mom served cream of wheat.
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Southerners ate chicken and flat or “slick” dumplings. When we had dumplings, ours were big and puffy and sat atop a fricassee.
Don’t get me wrong, friends. I love rolls, and I even like cream of wheat.
In the great dumpling debate, I won’t throw a puffy one on the floor if it’s offered, but I do come down on the side of the slick dumpling. I had some catching up to do.
Southern fried chicken. The glory that is whole hog barbecue.
Nubby cubes of golden cornbread. Fluffy buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy. Collard greens and field peas. Rich yet thrifty bread pudding. Crispy-tangy fried green tomatoes. Homemade pimento cheese sandwiches.
And succotash. That interesting dish that is at once both a New England Thanksgiving staple and a southern comfort food.
What Is Succotash?
The word succotash is a Native American–Narragansett, specifically–word that means bits of corn.
As you can tell from the name, what is actually contained in succotash, besides corn, is up for debate and interpretation.
At its most basic, you cook corn and lima beans together with some fat. The end.
Because succotash has both some type of seeds (corn) and some type of legumes (beans), you end up with a meatless dish that has all the essential amino acids in it.
In other words, a succotash is a complete protein, making it a great candidate for a Meatless Monday meal, as long as you don’t add in bacon or lard.
Different Ways to Make Succotash
The easiest way to switch up a succotash recipe is to use different kinds of corn and/or different types of beans. You can also use a mixture.
There is no rule that says just because there are lima beans in your succotash that you can’t add field peas, for example. Or that you can’t use both white and yellow corn along with pinto beans and/or black eyed peas.
You can also add any number of other vegetables to your succotash. Consider these summer favorites:
- Green beans
- sweet peas
- tomatoes
- squash
- zucchini
- okra
I usually cook my succotash on the stove, but you can also roast all the vegetables together in the oven.
You can even top a dish of mixed corn, beans, some fat, and seasonings with pie crust to make a vegetable pot pie.
Is Succotash Vegan?
Generally speaking, succotash is not a vegan recipe, but you can certainly make a vegan succotash by cooking with Earth Balance, coconut oil, and/or coconut cream to make it creamy.
Use some liquid smoke to give it a bit of smokiness (this is from someone who would really miss bacon in her succotash!)
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What Makes This Spicy Succotash Recipe Special
For this succotash, I decided to update a southern side dish.
The succotash I’m bringing to our table today is a spicy one full of the expected corn and beans, in this case limas, but jazzed up with some:
- crisp bacon
- fava beans
- cayenne
- and one of my favorite southern shortcut ingredients, a can of Ro-Tel
The resulting succotash is creamy and complex.
You can easily make this vegetarian by leaving out the bacon and bacon fat or take it all the way to vegan by subbing in a vegan “butter” or some coconut oil.
I think a sprinkling of Marly’s Bacon-Flavored Almond Slivers would be great in either a vegetarian or vegan version.
I hope you enjoy this spicy succotash as much as we do.
Ways To Vary This Succotash Recipe
As I said before, succotash is sort of a free form recipe, and that gives you plenty of room to play.
There are many ways to modify this specific recipe. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Save time by using store-bought pre-crumbled bacon and saute your vegetables in olive oil and butter rather than in bacon fat
- If you can find fresh favas in the springtime, by all means use them. You will still want to cook them separately until tender, about 15-20 minutes (or more or less depending on the size of your fava beans)
- When making this recipe out of season, feel free to use frozen or even canned (drained) vegetables. Follow the instructions on the bags to see how long you should cook each vegetable to ensure they are tender.
- Leave out the fava beans entirely and replace with either more limas or any other fresh bean of your choice. I love field peas that we get at the farmers’ market
- If you don’t want it to be too spicy, replace the Ro-Tel with diced tomatoes, fresh or canned.
- You can also leave out or reduce the amount of cayenne called for
- Consider using ground chipotle instead of cayenne for a spicy, smoky flavor
- Up the flavor ante by stirring in a healthy spoonful of bacon jam instead or in addition to the crisp bacon
More Summer Recipes from the Progressive Eats Crew
Main Course
Never Enough Thyme – Creole Style Smothered Chicken
Appetizers
The Heritage Cook – Old Bay Shrimp Boil Skewers
Stetted – Fried Green Tomatoes with Smoked Tomato Basil Aioli
Salads
Miss in the Kitchen – Creamy Coleslaw
Life’s a Feast – Shrimp, Grilled Peach and Quinoa Salad
Soup
Spiceroots – Maque Choux Soup
Sides
Creative Culinary – Bacon and Caramelized Onion Creamed Corn
Pastry Chef Online – Spicy Succotash–You’re already here!
Beverage
Healthy. Delicious. – Watermelon Lemonade
Desserts
Barbara Bakes – Key Lime Pound Cake
That Skinny Chick Can Bake – Banana Cream Cheesecake Pie
Don't let its small price and small size fool you. The Escali Primo is an accurate and easy-to-use food scale that I have used for years. It's easy to store, easy to use, has a tare function, and easily switches between grams and ounces/pounds for accurate measurements.
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Spicy Succotash for Progressive Eats
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Ingredients
- 4 oz uncooked bacon
- 1 Tablespoon bacon fat reserved from cooking
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 1 ½ cups 6 oz diced sweet onion
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 5 oz about 1 cup yellow corn kernels
- 5 oz about 1 cup white corn kernels
- 8 oz about 1 1/2 cups baby lima beans
- 1 can Ro-Tel (I used the Chunky style)
- ½ cup vegetable broth or water
- ½ to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper to taste
- ½ cup dried fava beans simmered in 1 1/2 cups unsalted water for 30 minutes, drained
- 4 oz 1/2 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Cook the bacon in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet until crisp. Crumble it and set aside.
- Pour off all the fat except about 1 Tablespoon.
- Add the butter to the pan and then cook the onion along with some salt and pepper until translucent, about 5 minutes.
- Add the corn kernels, lima beans, Ro-Tel and cayenne. Stir to combine and heat through.
- Taste and adjust the salt and pepper as necessary.
- Add the broth or water. Bring the mixture to a boil and then cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Let the vegetables simmer about 5-6 minutes until the limas are approaching tender.
- Remove the lid, add the cream and turn the heat back up to reduce the broth/cream mixture to a thick sauce, about 5 minutes.
- Add the reserved fava beans during the last 3 minutes of cooking to heat through.
- Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.
- Stir in about 2/3 of the crumbled bacon.
- Top each serving with additional crumbled bacon.
- Enjoy
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
- Save time by using store-bought pre-crumbled bacon and saute your vegetables in olive oil and butter rather than in bacon fat
- If you can find fresh favas in the springtime, by all means use them. You will still want to cook them separately until tender, about 15-20 minutes (or more or less depending on the size of your fava beans)
- When making this recipe out of season, feel free to use frozen or even canned (drained) vegetables. Follow the instructions on the bags to see how long you should cook each vegetable to ensure they are tender.
- Leave out the fava beans entirely and replace with either more limas or any other fresh bean of your choice. I love field peas that we get at the farmers’ market
- If you don’t want it to be too spicy, replace the Ro-Tel with diced tomatoes, fresh or canned.
- You can also leave out or reduce the amount of cayenne called for
- Consider using ground chipotle instead of cayenne for a spicy, smoky flavor
Nutrition
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And there you have it friends. A perfectly wonderful summer succotash that’s veggie sweet with a little heat. Enjoy!
Thank you for spending some time with me today. Take care, and have a lovely day.
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Oh my Oh my! What a fabulous and economical dish – in fact, I’d pair it with some cornbread and a salad and call it a meal all on its own. If you have corn, onions and tomatoes from your (or your neighbor’s) garden it’s even cheaper! I have a whole mason jar of bacon grease in my fridge. I might make it with that and leave out the actual bacon to save even a bit more. Can you tell I’m in an ultra-tightwad phase right now? LOL
That’s true Southern cooking then, Jenny! Making do with what you have, even if it’s just to see if you can. And it’s delicious–hope you love it!
Jenni, I just saw on the Progressive Eats event plan that YOU are scheduled to host the Holiday Desserts fest in November. OMIGOD I can hardly wait to see what you come up with! Please, please give us a little preview here when you get your plan formulated!
I’m having a little love affair with Marlborough Apple Pie that I want to talk to you about…
I’m looking forward to that progressive dinner too–it is going to be delicious! Not sure what I’m doing, and knowing myself, I probably won’t even figure it out until the week it’s due, but if I do plan ahead, I will share an instagram preview!
I too am a “naturalized” southerner — 20 years here now after growing up in California — and I’ve yet to meet a chicken-hugging dumpling, slick or fluffy, that I didn’t like. This dish sounds like 25% of heaven on a meat ‘n three plate. (Let my other three be fried chicken, smothered cabbage, and rice & gravy.) Right now I need to go look at that Macque Choux Soup. Yum.
That soup is stunning, Maggie–you’ll love it! One of my favorite things about the south is that one of my veggies can be mac&cheese! lol
Amen, sister!
I can just imagine your bewilderment living smack-dab in the middle of the South in a family with a Queens culinary background! Must have made for some amusing moments! You certainly seem to have acclimated over the years because this succotash would be welcome on any southern sideboard. Bravo.
Thanks, Lana! Fortunately for me, it has been a delicious process of playing catch-up!
Mmmmm you’ve got everything wonderful going on there… creamy, complex, beany (I love fava beans), corn and bacon and I love this! A side dish? Or a main course eaten out of the bowl with a spoon in front of the tv? But yes this would make a great picnic or bbq side dish! I love it!
I *may* have put bacon on it the first time I made it: instant dinner! =)
I giggled so much reading your post because that’s similar to my experience growing up in PR — rice & beans, fritters, all that was stuff we ate when we weren’t home. That was “other people” food. I love my PRican food, and I love Southern food (tho I’m still ambivalent about dumplings and livermush). Mhhhhmmm, pimento cheese sammiches!!! I can’t wait to try this succotash, it looks delicious.
=) You’re eventually going to have to take a stand on the dumpling issue.
This is certainly my kind of comfort food!
Starchy veggies and cream and bacon? Me too! Perfect comfort. =)
I am not only loving the southern food journey for the flavors, I am falling in love with it. With such exotic names as succotash and cayenne pepper as one of the ingredients, I have bookmarked this recipe to make.
I hope you love it, Ansh! It’s so funny what folks find exotic. Masala sounds exotic to me; succotash sounds exotic to me. But exotic or not, truly delicious! I am so glad you are falling in love with Southern Food. There’s a lot to love, and much can be traced back to African roots. Lots of interesting (and sometimes disturbing) food history in the southern US.
Look at all those fabulous fresh vegetables! Can’t wait to try this!
Thanks, Julie!
I ‘only’ lived in the south for 10 years, calling Raleigh home. But they were formative years. Young wife; new mother; that time when I learned to garden and can and bake (and sew too!) and it has surely impacted me and what I love forever. Heck, I still have some annual Southern Living cookbooks that hold treasures I would cry without!
That being said, guess it’s my midwest roots that cry for puffy dumplings; I never quite got that slick business! 🙂
Wonderful example of Southern tradition mixed with your own fabulous take Jenni. Thanks for joining our motley crew!
Thrilled to be a part of this motley crew. As long as everyone can cook, I don’t care how motley we are! =)
I was with you right up to the whole lima bean thing Jenni! Loved your descriptions of our beloved Southern food – yum! You even managed to make succotash sound really good – I guess if I left out the limas it wouldn’t be succotash anymore, would it? ( :
I think you could use field peas instead, Nadine! I won’t tell! =)
Bacon and veggies? How can your succotash be anything but spectacular! Joining you at the Progressive Eats table is the next best thing to hanging out and dining with you in person!
I couldn’t agree more! And I just love the photo of you and Barb together! Succotash and banana pie? Yes! I would love to sit down and share the whole meal with everyone. =)
I’ve never had the pleasure of eating succotash before. I only associate it with sufferin’ 🙂 It looks like a delightful dish. Perfect for our southern dinner.
I actually have another succotash on the blog that I call “Thufferin’ Thuccotash” Barbara! lol I do love it. All the dishes look just amazing!
Oh Jenni, you are speaking to my heart! My grandmother, Mimi, always made slick dumplings with chicken gravy for us and I am dreaming of them now. Your succotash looks incredible and I love that you used Favas instead of lima beans. Creamy and comforting with a little kick, this is the way to get any kid to eat their vegetables, LOL! Way to go ~ you did the South proud!
Thank you so much, Jane! I did use the traditional limas, but I couldn’t resist adding in some favas, just for fun! And slick dumplings are the best, aren’t they? =)