Freezer Corn

Freezer corn allows you to have fresh sweet corn, picked at its peak and enjoy it all year long with this method.

Freezer Corn

Every Iowa farm family has their own way they make freezer corn – my family cookbook has 4 freezer corn recipes alone! Each recipe is slightly different with and this recipe is a combination of several of those recipes and is how I prefer to make mine. The sweet corn is cut from the cob and combined with butter, half and half or water and seasonings and then slowly baked. After it is cooled, it is packed into freezer containers for you to enjoy freshly cut sweet corn, all year-round.

Sweet Corn

Did you know that most of the corn you see in the fields here in the Midwest is actually not the corn we eat? Most of the corn crop in the Midwest and Iowa is field corn, which is produced into mostly ethanol and livestock feed. Sweet corn is the corn we eat with the peak season in the mid to late summer months. The best part about making this freezer corn is that you are freezing the sweet corn when its at its peak ripeness during the summer and are able to preserve the fresh, sweet taste of the sweet corn.

How to Make Freezer Corn

Growing up with a Grandpa who was a 4th generation farmer meant we always had plenty of this freezer corn stocked up and I really enjoy continuing to make this recipe as an adult. This recipe makes a very large batch (4 dozen ears of corn!) but you can easily adjust the ingredient amounts based on how much you want to make.

The most time consuming portion of this method is shucking and cutting the corn off the cob – it’s a great recipe to make together with someone else, since you can split up the work. Be sure to read the many tips below I have found work best to make this recipe the most efficient way possible.

Ingredients

18 cups freshly cut sweet corn (from about 4 dozen ears of freshly shucked sweet corn)

1 pint half and half or 1 1/2 cups water*

1 pound unsalted butter, cubed

2 ½ Tablespoons salt

1 Tablespoon ground pepper

1/4 cup sugar, optional

Instructions

Place all ingredients into a large roaster or Dutch oven. Cook at 325F for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool slightly, and then spoon into freezer containers and freeze.

Tips for Freezer Corn

• To work efficiently as possible for this recipe, shuck all of the corn first and then cut the corn off each cob on a large cutting board, adding the cut corn to the Dutch oven or roaster in batches
• Use a large kitchen knife or an electric knife to cut the corn off the cob
• For freezer containers, you can use disposable containers with lids, quart size plastic freezer bags, silicone freezer bags or thick glass containers. If using glass, make sure the glass is thick enough and allow enough head room to allow for expansion.
• One pint of half and half or 1 ½ cups of water might not seem like much liquid, but the corn “milk”, or the juices from the freshly cut corn help keep the corn moist while it is baking.

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