10 of the Best North Carolina Recipes - Big Bear's Wife (2024)
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BBQ, Krispy Kreme, Cheerwine and Fresh Seafood top the list when it comes to North Carolina Food and I’ve got 10 of the Best North Carolina Recipes to share with y’all to showcase one of my favorite states!
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North Carolina is one of my favorite places to be. We lived there for a few years when Thomas was stationed at Camp Lejeune, it’s home to Wilmington/Carolina Beach which is one of my cities and we love to take day trips across the state line to NC to go shopping.
Like Virginia, North Carolina has both fantastic beaches and beautiful mountains plus tons of history! My favorite city, Wilmington, was founded around 1740! Did you know that the Mitchell-Anderson House at 102 Orange St in Wilmington was built in 1738 and is the oldest surviving building there!?
But on the other side of North Carolina you have beautiful places as well like Asheville, NC which is home to the Baltimore Estate!
So let’s see, North Carolina Food… think BBQ, Krispy Kreme, Cheerwine, Fresh Sea Food, Shrimp, Peaches, Biscuits and Gravy and more southern favorites as we dive into…..
10 of the Best North Carolina Recipes
1. DOUGHNUT BREAD PUDDING
Kick your traditional bread pudding up a notch with the addition of glazed doughnuts! Doughnut Bread Pudding replaces french bread with glazed doughnuts for an over-the-top treat. Best of all, the doughnuts do not have to be fresh. Stale doughnuts work just as well as those right out of the Krispy Kreme box.
Recipe from Big Bears Wife – Click Here for the Recipe
TheBEST Homemade Biscuit recipe you’ll ever try! These easy, homemade biscuits are soft, flaky, made completely from scratch and can be on your table in about 15 minutes!
Recipe from Big Bears Wife – Click Here for the Recipe
5. Carolina-Style Instant Pot Shredded BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
These insanely delicious, ridiculously EASY Carolina-Style Instant Pot Shredded BBQ Chicken Sandwiches are an adaptation of our crazy-popular, beloved slow cooker recipe. Inspired by our epic family beach vacations along the Eastern Carolina shore, this recipe takes just minutes to prep and is a total snap in your pressure cooker (so you can spend more time at the beach)!
7. CHEERWINE LAYER CAKE WITH EASY CHEERWINE MARSHMALLOW BUTTERCREAM
Happy 100th Birthday, Cheerwine! In honor of their Centennial, I give you theCheerwine Cakewith Easy Cheerwine Marshmallow Buttercream. Birthdays just got a bit Cheer(wine)ier!
TheBEST Homemade Mac and Cheese of your LIFE. Outrageously cheesy, ultra creamy, and topped with a crunchy Panko-Parmesan topping, this mac and cheese recipe is most definitely a keeper. Three different cheese and a homemade cheese sauce to take this macaroni and cheese recipe over the top.
You are going to love thislazy peach sonker, friends. I started with a recipe for spiced peaches from my friends’ Jane Bonacci and Sara de Leeuw’s cookbook,The Gluten-Free Instant Pot Cookbook, and then I turned them into the filling for a lazy sonker.
We love shrimp and gritsbut we need quick and simple after work!This is the version that we love when we’re in a hurry or when we’ve had a super long day at work! We call this, “The Lazy Southern’s Shrimp and Grits”.
Recipe from Big Bears Wife – Click Here for the Recipe
Bonus Recipe
PERFECT GRITS AND GREENS BREAKFAST BOWL
This breakfast bowl is a copy cat of a breakfast I had at Corner Kitchen in Asheville, North Carolina a few years ago!
Recipe from Big Bears Wife – Click Here for the Recipe
1. North Carolina-Style Barbecue. Dishing up a plate of premium Southern cuisine should always include a stop at the nearest barbecue place. First discovered in the 16th century, BBQ was brought to the region by Sir Walter Raleigh.
The harvests gathered by colonial farmers included an expansive number of crops: beans, squash, peas, okra, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes, and peanuts. Maize (corn), and later rice and potatoes were grown in place of wheat and barley which were common European crops that did not take readily to eastern American soil.
Some Indigenous foods from our region include favorites like corn or cornbread, beans, squash, greens, field peas, tomatoes, chocolate, chili, sweet potatoes, turnips, pecans, pine nuts, rice, soups, venison, bison, game, fish, and stews.
The top five most popular holiday side dishes include mashed potatoes, stuffing/dressing, mac & cheese, yams/ sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole.
North Carolina's local and regional food system includes the production of apples, blackberries, blueberries, figs, kiwifruit, muscadine grapes, pecans, peaches, nectarines, raspberries, and strawberries.
For lunch many colonists would have had bread, meat or cheese along with water, beer or cider. Most cheese making was done at home, and was very hard work. At dinnertime the colonial people might have had a meat stew, meat pies, or more of that porridge, and again beer, water or coder to drink.
North Carolina is close to the Gulf Stream, where fisherfolk catch mahi-mahi, tuna, swordfish, and other large migratory species. Coastal species like drum, trout, shrimp, and blue crabs feel at home in the state's extensive network of sounds, rivers, and estuarine environments.
Corn, pork, and beef were staples in most lower and middle class households. Dinner for these groups usually consisted of a stew made from a piece of pork and dried or fresh vegetables, and a starch such as corncake or corn pone.
The first actively cultivated grape in the United States, the Scuppernong grape was named the official State Fruit by the General Assembly in 2001. The scuppernong grape was named after the Scuppernong River that runs through Tyrell and Washington counties.
Though there is not one state animal, the State of North Carolina does officially recognize a number of our native animals within their type. The state mammal is the eastern gray squirrel. The marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum) is the official state salamander of North Carolina.
Proponents of both styles favor pork as the main meat. In North Carolina, the pork is typically brushed with a spice-and-vinegar mop as it's cooking. It's then portioned out and served with a ketchup-based sauce on the side.
Introduction: My name is Melvina Ondricka, I am a helpful, fancy, friendly, innocent, outstanding, courageous, thoughtful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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