The Kitchen · Recipe
Dark-Toasted Grits
Plain grits, toasted in butter until they smell like buttered popcorn. A whole different dish, and the one we want under the shrimp and gravy.
- Serves
- 2
- Toast
- 7–8 minutes
- Simmer
- About 20 minutes
- Heat
- Medium
Most of us know grits as a breakfast food, and a mild one at that. Toast them in butter until they turn deep golden-brown and the whole kitchen smells like buttered popcorn, and they become something else: toasted corn, nutty and rich, with plenty of flavor of its own. They read like dinner. They cook in the same water and about the same time as plain grits. The only difference is a few minutes at the start, and it changes everything.
Ingredients
- ½ cup Quaker Old Fashioned grits
- 2 tablespoons butter, for toasting
- 2¼ cups water
- Salt: a good three-finger pinch to start, then season to taste (more than the package suggests)
- Plenty more butter, to finish
Method
- Melt the butter. Use a heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat.
- Toast the grits. Add the dry grits and stir often, 7 to 8 minutes. They go from pale and sandy to golden, then to a deep brown. Pull them when they smell distinctly like buttered popcorn. Stay at the stove and keep stirring.
- Add the water and salt. Stir well and bring to a simmer.
- Cook. Cover the pan most of the way and cook about 20 minutes, stirring often, until the grits are tender and thick.
- Season and finish. Taste and add salt until the corn tastes like itself. Stir in plenty of butter and serve hot.
Watch the color
The color tells you where you are. Here is the pan at the start, about halfway, and when the grits are done.
What grits to use
This works with any quick grits, usually labeled “regular” or “old-fashioned,” the kind that cooks in 15 to 20 minutes. Stone-ground quick grits work too.
Where it comes from
Toasting grits in butter for 2 to 3 minutes before the liquid goes in is a great trick we use to bring out more corn flavor. Cook them longer, past golden and into brown, and the corn stops tasting like plain grits and starts tasting like toasted corn. We made this with Quaker Old Fashioned, the grits many of us grew up on.