What are the best Southern vegetable side dishes that you loved and wish you knew how to make? The way Southern vegetables are cooked varies, depending on which part of the South you’re eating them.
What Makes Vegetables Southern Style?
How to make and cook vegetables Southern style depends on the part of the South a person is from. The way we make them in my family, in East and Southeast Texas, may vary somewhat from other traditional recipes.
The Southern style vegetables I am used to have these things in common: they are cooked with butter, sugar, salt, pepper, herbs and spices.
Foods are seasoned more spicy in Southeast Texas than East Texas. To keep it simple, use a little salt, plenty of pepper, a tad of butter, and a liberal amount of butter (real butter – no fake kind).
Butter and sugar go well with yellow summer squash, sweet peas (also known as English peas in East Texas), Brussels sprouts, cabbage, greens, carrots, green beans, leafy greens, and just about any other type of vegetable.
My paternal grandmother and a great aunt taught me that a spoonful of sugar takes the bitterness out of some vegetables like greens.
Typical Southern Meals
Typical Southern meals include meats such as fried or barbecue chicken, roast beef, meatloaf, and pork chops with at least two or three vegetable sides, bread, and dessert. Add sweet iced tea to the meal for a true Southern-satisfying meal.
Make a Southern meal for your family and special guests. Try one of the following suggested meal plans. One-pot and all-veggie meals are included in the list:
- Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, and a hot buttered roll.
- Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, black-eyed peas, greens, cornbread (with butter), chocolate pie, and banana pudding.
- Roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, squash casserole, hot buttered roll, chocolate cake (Mississippi Mud Cake).
- BBQ chicken, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, corn on the cob, hot buttered roll, fruit salad, and bread pudding.
- Pork chops over rice and gravy, steamed broccoli, sweet potatoes.
- Purple hull peas, cabbage, okra/tomatoes/onions, and cornbread.
- Fried potatoes, cream peas, cornbread.
- Pinto beans and cornbread.
A Trip to Savannah, Georgia
… and a Southern-Style Restaurant
Going to Savannah, Georgia? Stop by Paula Deen’s restaurant, The Lady & Sons. Southern style food is served there. I haven’t dined at the restaurant (it’s on my bucket list), but my husband ate there and loved it. His meal included Southern Fried Chicken, meatloaf, green beans, tomatoes/onions/cucumbers and more delicious sides.
The Day I Met Colonel Sanders
I love fried chicken and especially Colonel Harland David Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken, the original kind. So on a flight from Louisville, Kentucky to Atlanta, Georgia I was excited when a flight attendant informed my friends and me that Colonel Harland Sanders was on our plane. I was about seventeen.
We exited the plane and waited in the gate arrival area to meet the famous Kentucky Fried Chicken celebrity as suggested to us. Cameras ready, we asked the Colonel (dressed in his white suit, Bible and cane in hand) if we could take his picture. When it was my turn, he said, “Say chicken!” Actually, I still have the picture saved in an old photo album.
More Kitchen Southern Hospitality (southern style) Recipes
Broccoli and Cauliflower Salad
Shrimp Scampi Cabbage – Southeast Texas Style