List of soul foods and dishes
This is a list of soul foods and dishes. Soul food is a style of cuisine that is associated with African Americans in the Southern United States It uses a variety of ingredients and cooking styles, some of which are indigenous to Africa and were brought over by enslaved Africans, and others that are indigenous to Europe and derive from white American cooking influences as well as to the Americas, borrowed from Native American cuisine.
Meat dishes
Some meat soul foods and dishes include:| Name | Image | Description |
| Fatback | Fatty, cured, salted pork, especially the first layers of the back of the pig primarily used in slow-cooking as a seasoning. Pictured is breaded and fried fatback. | |
| Fried chicken | A dish consisting of chicken pieces usually from broiler chickens that have been floured or battered and then pan-fried, deep fried, or pressure fried. The seasoned breading adds a crisp coating or crust to the exterior. Southern fried chicken derives from Scottish American cuisine. Chicken and waffles, in particular, is a soul food dish associated with special occasions. Waffles are adapted from European cuisine. | |
| Fried fish | Any of several varieties of fish, including catfish, whiting, porgies, bluegill, sometimes battered in seasoned cornmeal. Adapted from method of frying chicken. | |
| Ham hocks | Typically smoked or boiled, ham hocks generally consist of much skin, tendons and ligaments, and require long cooking through stewing, smoking or braising to be made palatable. The cut of meat can be cooked with greens and other vegetables or in flavorful sauces. | |
| Hog jowl | Cured and smoked cheeks of pork. It is not actually a form of bacon, but is associated with the cut due to the streaky nature of the meat and the similar flavor. Hog jowl is a staple of soul food, but is also used outside the United States, for example in the Italian dish guanciale. | |
| Hog maw | The stomach lining of a pig; it is very muscular and contains no fat. As a soul food dish, hog maw has often been coupled with chitterlings, which are pig intestines. In the book Plantation Row Slave Cabin Cooking: The Roots of Soul Food hog maw is used in the Hog Maw Salad recipe. | |
| Offal | Such as chitterlings or "chitlins". It is adapted from early European cuisine, or hog maws. | |
| Ox tails | The tail of cattle, oxtail is a bony, gelatin-rich meat, which is usually slow-cooked as a stew or braised. | |
| Pickled pigs' feet | Slow cooked, sometimes pickled or often eaten with a vinegar based sauce. | |
| Pigs' feet | The feet of pigs: the cuts are used in various dishes around the world, and their usage has increased in popularity since the late-2000s financial crisis. | |
| Pork | As a meat dish, such as ham and bacon, and for the flavoring of vegetables and legumes, gravys and sauces. | |
| Pork ribs | The ribcage of a domestic pig, meat and bones together, is cut into usable pieces, prepared by smoking, grilling, or baking – usually with a sauce, often barbecue – and then served. The method of barbecuing is of Native American influence. | |
| Poultry | Giblets, such as chicken liver and gizzards. Pictured is a chicken gizzard dish. | |
| Turkey | Neck bones |
Vegetables and legumes
Beans, greens and other vegetables are often cooked with ham or pork parts to add flavor.| Name | Image | Description |
| Black-eyed peas | Often mixed into Hoppin' John and other types of rice and beans dishes. Pictured are black-eyed peas with smoked hocks and corn bread. | |
| Collard greens | A staple vegetable of Southern U.S. cuisine, they are often prepared with other similar green leaf vegetables, such as kale, turnip greens, spinach, and mustard greens in "mixed greens". They are generally eaten year-round in the South, often with a pickled pepper vinegar sauce. Typical seasonings when cooking collards can consist of smoked and salted meats, diced onions and seasonings. | |
| Hoppin' John | A dish served in the Southern United States consisting of black-eyed peas and rice, with chopped onion and sliced bacon, seasoned with a bit of salt. Some people substitute ham hock, fatback, or country sausage for the conventional bacon; a few use green peppers or vinegar and spices. Smaller than black-eyed peas, field peas are used in the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia; black-eyed peas are the norm elsewhere. | |
| Mustard greens | A species of mustard plant. Subvarieties include southern giant curled mustard, which resembles a headless cabbage such as kale, but with a distinct horseradish-mustard flavor. It is also known as green mustard cabbage. | |
| Okra | A vegetable that is native to West Africa, and is eaten fried or stewed and is a traditional ingredient of gumbo. It is sometimes cooked with tomatoes, corn, onions and hot peppers | |
| Sweet potatoes | Often parboiled, sliced, then adorned with butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla or other spices, and baked; commonly called "candied sweets" or "candied yams" | |
| Turnip greens | Turnip leaves are sometimes eaten as "turnip greens", and they resemble mustard greens in flavor. Turnip greens are a common side dish in southeastern US cooking, primarily during late fall and winter. Smaller leaves are preferred; however, any bitter taste of larger leaves can be reduced by pouring off the water from initial boiling and replacing it with fresh water. Varieties specifically grown for the leaves resemble mustard greens more than those grown for the roots, with small or no storage roots. |