Born a Hoosier or consider yourself an honorary one because you’ve traveled to the Indianapolis 500 for as long as you can remember? Then, there are iconic Indiana foods you must eat, and restaurants you have to visit to get them.
Indiana is meat- and carb-lovers’ country. Gravy it up and pile it high. The buzzwords here are "hearty" and "humble." No crazy seasoning blends, no tweezers placing tiny peas on mini lettuce painted with a nickel’s worth of sauce.
Earn your Hoosier cred by checking off these Indiana classics.
Hoosier Pie
Sugar cream pie is so ingrained in Indiana culture Hoosiers went ahead and put their name on it. The creamy, buttery custard filling, a hint of nutmeg sprinkled on top, has been a staple since N.C. Quakers brought the recipe to Indiana in the early 1800s. Seventy-five-year-old Wick’s Pies in Winchester is said to bake the most sugar cream pies anywhere. Don’t miss the bruleed sugar cream pie at Pots & Pans Pie Co. in Indianapolis either. The crackly, torched-sugar topping sinks into the thick custard at a fork’s touch.
Hoosier pie history: What you didn't know about Indiana sugar cream pie (and a cherished recipe)
Breaded tenderloin
King of all Hoosierland signature foods, the breaded pork tenderloin sandwich has everything Indiana loves: a slab of deep-fried meat, mild seasoning and a lot of fuss over a simple thing. Pork loin is the requisite cut, but some people want it sliced thickly and cubed. Others prefer the pork pounded ultra-thin and as big as a pizza. Flavor the breading with more than salt and pepper and you’ll be shunned. Mustard on the bun, maybe mayonnaise, and a few pickle slices are OK, but ask for lettuce, tomato, cheese or anything else and your Hoosier status will be revoked. Name the best tenderloin at your own risk. Everyone has an opinion (psst…111-year-old Nick’s Kitchen in Huntington. Founder Nick Freienstein is credited as the father of breaded tenderloins, first selling them from a cart in 1904).
Best tenderloins: Where is Indiana's favorite sandwich
Chicken and Noodles
"Carb-load like you’re running a road race every day" could be the Hoosier mantra. It's a legacy of hard farm and factory work. Strips of dough cut so thick they could almost qualify as dumplings dominate stewed chicken or beef. Hooisers don’t stop there. They like to serve the noodles over mashed potatoes and maybe with a side of corn cut off the cob. Gray Brothers Cafeteria in Mooresville does chicken and noodles just like Grandma’s. Try Steer-In in Indianapolis for beef and noodles.
Beef Manhattan
Just a hot roast beef sandwich? Yes. Found in hundreds of diners from South Dakota to Illinois, Ohio and Minnesota, points north, south, east and west, even New York City, where it’s said to have taken off in the early 1900s? Certainly. But legend claims customers at an Indianapolis restaurant first called it a Beef Manhattan in the 1940s. That’s enough for Hoosiers to own it. Demand a ton of fall-apart-tender roast beef between two slabs of white bread. A scoop of mashed potatoes belongs in the nook of the two sandwich halves. Next comes rich, dark beef gravy galore. Some of the best Beef Manhattans are at Gray Brothers Cafeteria in Mooresville, MacNiven’s on Mass Ave. in Indianapolis, and MCL Restaurant & Bakery locations across central Indiana.
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Fried brain sandwich
When world-renown chef René Redzepi cooked duck brain in butter and spices and serve it inside a duck head, restaurant critics considered him a genius. But in 2017, Thrillist billed Indiana's fried pork brain sandwiches the grossest food in Indiana. Battered and deep-fried brains are crispy outside and have a delicate flavor and a texture you might compare to tofu or scrambled eggs within. Hilltop Inn in Evansville is fried-brain-sandwich-central in Indiana. The restaurant does a jumbo-brain sandwich, but rookies might want to start with sliders -- extra pickles and onion.
Hoosier rib-eye
Sliced thin, hot off the grill, juicy, tender and set inside a squishy white bun is the steak sandwich Indiana State Fair masses crave. Two vendors sell Hoosier rib-eye sandwiches at the fair, one of them being the Indiana Beef Cattle Association. The organization reached a peak of genius in 2019 when it crowned the steak sandwich with a load of smoked beef brisket.
Smashed burgers
So many Indiana places have mastered burgers pressed on a griddle until their edges become umami crisp, but the undeniable No. 1 spot for the burger of our people is The Workingman’s Friend in Indianapolis. Ground chuck patties get their lacy rings from being smashed on the same griddle that's been seasoned over decades at the 101-year-old, cash-only restaurant.
Smashed burger bucket list: These are the best smashed burgers in Indianapolis.
St. Elmo shrimp cocktail
St. Elmo Steak House is Indiana’s most-famous restaurant, and its sinus-flaming shrimp cocktail is a rite of passage for Indianapolis newcomers. You’ll know you’ve earned your honorary Hoosier citizenship when it’s your turn to laugh at a newbie brought to horseradish tears. Downright chunky with the hot stuff, St. Elmo’s cocktail sauce covers four jumbo shrimp, which is no sweat for true Hoosiers. One of them downed all four in 13 seconds during a St. Elmo shrimp-cocktail-eating contest at a 2019 Indiana Pacers game.
Zombie Dust
Hoosiers have been known to closely track tappings of this intensely hoppy pale ale by Indiana’s famous 3 Floyds Brewing in Muncie. Back then, Zombie Dust was made in more limited quantities, meaning it was difficult to find. Since then, 3 Floyds has upped production as Zombie Dust continues to win accolades. In 2018, it ranked in the top 10 of Zymurgy magazine’s Best Beers in America.
Fried biscuits and apple butter
Admittedly, these are really small doughnuts, although some Hooisers fry canned biscuits for the cinnamon-sugar-coated puffs. Always eat them warm from the fryer and smeared with apple butter, preferably homemade. Head south to Nashville General Store & Bakery in Nashville, Ind., for fried biscuits.
Persimmon pudding
If fall in Indiana had a flavor it would be spicy, sweet persimmon pudding. The moist texture is somewhere between pound cake and soft brownies. About the only places to get it are Hoosier home kitchens, September's Persimmon Festival in Mitchell and Hilltop Family Style Restaurant in Spencer. Recipes are so sacred in Indiana that Mitchell native Ro Pettiner felt obligated to call the New York Times about a recipe the newspaper published in 2014, when the newspaper discovered that persimmon pudding was Indiana’s most-searched Thanksgiving recipe. The Times recommended firm, tangy Fuyu persimmons. Tsk tsk. The correct choices are squish, super-sweet, wild American persimmons picked up from the ground under persimmon trees.
Famous persimmon pudding: This family recipe is 150 years old
Morel mushrooms
Hoosiers chuckle and shake their heads when they see foodies pay $50 or more a pound for mid-spring’s morels. They might roll their eyes at chefs’ fancy morel dishes. Hoosiers don’t buy the distinctive, web-capped mushrooms; they forage them. Hunting grounds are top secret, but in just-right rainy seasons, morels pop up in backyards. The mushroom’s nutty flavor shines when it’s flour-dusted and – can you guess? – deep-fried.
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Corn on the cob
Indiana grows more than a billion bushels of corn annually, and Hoosiers never seem to tire of corn pudding, corn casserole, popcorn (Orville Redenbacher was a Hoosier), corn bread and myriad other corn dishes. If they could only have one corn dish for the rest of their lives, they’d probably pick sweet corn on the cob. Butter-dripping corn on a stick rivals roasted turkey legs at the Indiana State Fair, where Hoosiers swarm the Lion’s Club corn tent and Wilson’s roasted sweet corn. At farmers markets, they seek My Dad's Sweet Corn from Tipton. At home, corn on the cob shares the plate with sliced summer tomatoes and stewed green beans.
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