Try Freezing Fresh Corn for Later!
Preserve the taste of summer by freezing fresh corn! When it’s at the season’s peak, there’s nothing better; however, fresh corn lasts only so long. The next best thing is to freeze it! Freeze your corn and enjoy the fresh taste year round!
Freezing corn is a little messy, but it’s not hard at all. (And, yes, you must blanch it!)
Get Corn Into the Freezer Quickly
Make sure that your corn is really fresh (as it was picked on the same day) because the taste and flavor of corn go downhill fast. When freshly pickled, sweet corn is high in natural sugar and low in starch.
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After corn is picked, the sugars in the kernel turn to starch in only two hours, changing the flavor and even the texture when it’s cooked. So, it’s important to get it into the freezer quickly once it’s taken from its stalk for that amazing flavor.
Growing Corn or Buying Corn?
I tend to buy corn from my local farm stand instead of growing it. You need a large stand for corn to be successful. Small patches don’t work out so well. At a minimum, grow corn in blocks and not long rows.
Why? Corn is different from most vegetables. The bees don’t pollinate it; rather, the wind does the job. Those silks or hairs are really important. During pollination, pollen from the tassel is carried by wind to the silks. Pollen grains attach to the sticky end of each silk, and then travel down the silks to fertilize each ovary. After pollination, the ovary develops into a kernel of corn at the other end of each strand of silk. Take a look the next time you husk corn, and you will notice that there is a silk attached to each kernel!
I arrive at my local organic farm when or slightly after it opens. I buy three dozen ears and bring them home. Two and a half dozen of these ears will be frozen!
One ear of corn usually yields about 1/2 cup kernels.
How to Blanch Corn
If you’re freezing corn, I recommend blanching for the best taste: give the corn a quick boil in water followed by quick cooling in ice water before preserving it by freezing.
Natural enzymes in corn need to be inactivated before freezing to prevent the loss of color, nutrients, flavor, and texture. Chilling in ice water prevents the corn from becoming mushy due to overcooking the starch.
Let the corn sit in the icy water until it’s cold, typically, same amount of time corn was blanched.
Freeze Off or On the Cob?
You can freeze the entire cob instead, but I don’t care for frozen cobs, and they take up a lot of space.
Immediately, I put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. While waiting for this to happen, I shuck the corn from its husks, removing all that silk.
I also get out several trays of ice, depositing the cubes in an insulated container. Quart-sized freezer bags are labeled with the year and set aside. A large stainless steel bowl is pulled from the cupboard and placed on the table.
Once the water starts boiling, I use tongs to deposit six ears into the water. They must be FULLY immersed, not popping out of the pot. I begin the timer. How many ears of corn you can blanche depends on the size of your pot. Do NOT overblanch or underblanch. Start counting your time as soon as the cobs enter the water.
- For small ears, blanch for 7 minutes;
- for medium-size ears, blanch for 9-minutes;
- for large ears, blanch for 11 minutes.
I fill the large stainless-steel bowl half with cold water and throw in eight or nine ice cubes to make it colder. It must be very icy cold!
When the timer dings, I pull the ears from the hot water and plunge them into the iced water to halt the cooking process. Immerse the ears in the ice water.
The general rule is: Immerse in icy water the same amount of time they were in the boiling water.
Slice the Kernels from the Cob (or Don’t)
Once the corn has cooled, I place the ears on the tray. Using a sharp knife, I cut the kernels from the cobs into a bowl, just running the knife down the sides. It’s messy! Try to get as many of the kernels off as you can. If you can do this job outside, it is even better for clean-up!
Freezing the Corn
When you have a big pile of kernels, scoop it into zip-top freezer bags (generally, 4 ears fill a quart), pat them flat (to remove air and so that they will stack easily), and seal the bag. Another trick—place a straw inside the bag, seal it mostly up, suck out the extra air, and seal quickly.
Label with the date. Put in the freezer in single layers so the corn freezes quickly.
Doing this twice a summer gives me about 16 quarts which is plenty for my use during the winter. You can use ¼ of the bag, or ½, or the whole thing.
The corn can be stored in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Sweet corn is wonderful in soups, stews, and stir fries—or, as a scrumptious side. You can also fold the corn into muffins or corn bread, make salsa, or turn into creamed corn.
Corn Recipes
We can’t talk about sweet corn without leaving you with some delicious recipes! Here are a few:
Do you have any tips or tricks for freezing corn? We want to hear them! Leave them in the comments.
Celeste Longacre
Introduction to Preserving
Freezing
Making Quick Pickles
Making Quick Jams: Refrigerator or Freezer Jam
Water-Bath Canning
How to Can Tomatoes
How to Can Pickles
How to Can Jam and Jelly
Pressure Canning
Drying
Salting and Brining
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We use an electric fish fillet knife. It's curved and more comfortable if you have a lot to do. We also take it off the cob before cooking. We use a receipe 10 cups corn,1/2 cup sugar,3/4 cup water,1 tsp salt. Stir occasionally. Heat corn til good and hot when pinched between fingers. Put in quart freezer bags and cool put in freezer.
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We put up creamed corn. I grow silver queen, or king. The silver king will hold in the field a day or so longer. Straight from the field. We use a large butcher knife to trim each end to ease shucking. We hand shuck and remove the silks. We then dry brush the corn to remove most of the silks and place into a wash tub filled with cool water . Then we remove them from the water and do a wet brush to remove as much of the silks as possible. Then we use a wooden cutter / creamer to remove the kernels and the cream from the cob. Place the cutter inside or across a large stainless steel bowl. A little downward pressure and push the ear through the cutter. Not pressing down so hard that you cut into the cob. The cob is rotated slightly each time it is ran over the cutter and repeated until all of the cream has been removed. Once the first bowl is full, ( about eight to ten quarts ) we take it into the kitchen. Here we pour about six cups of the creamed corn into glass casserole dishes and blanch in the microwave oven. We blanch each dish three times on high power for three to four minutes each time, stirring between each interval. We then pour the corn into plastic casserole dishes suspended inside another dish filled with ice water to stop the cooking process, stirring until cool. We then bag being sure to remove ALL air and freeze. I normally put up about thirty quarts a year. We love corn. This process is a lot of work, but well worth the effort. I have found corn in the freezer over nine years old, and it tasted as if it were put up the day before. Try it .
A recipe from mom.
Shuck the corn. Cut the kernels off however you prefer. Place the 10 to 12 cups of kernels in a deep frying pan. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of butter, 2 1/4 cups of water, 1 tsp of salt. Cook until most of the water has evaporated and the corn appears to change to a yellowish color. Remove from the frying pan to a large, preferably ceramic bowl to cool. Package in freezer bags, remove as much air as possible, freeze, and enjoy the flavor of fresh corn anytime you want. Just microwave to heat and it’s ready to serve. Simple.
Sorry, fat fingered that one - DON'T OVERCROWD.
As the season starts to end I go to my local farm stand and buy up the best looking ears that I can find. When I get home I put them husk and all (after trimming the tops a little bit) loosely into the freezer. Give them an overnight to freeze completely and then "pack" them loosely into a plastic bag ( produce bags from the supermarket work well). When it's time to eat them I rinse them thoroughly in cold water then into the microwave for two minutes per ear. DON'T OVERCORWD the microwave - no more than three or four ears at a time. When all are ready, shuck them ( the silk falls right off and you usually have none left to remove after shucking). The ears stay hot in the husks so remember to protect your hands when shucking.
Thanks, Celeste, for a wonderful blog! so interesting and informative! wishing you continued success!
My family does things a little different, but it has always worked for us. We don't shuck it at all. We simply gather the corn and put it in paper bags, usually enough for a meal(6-8ears), and put it in the freezer. When you want to prepare for a meal, shuck and silk after it's thawed and cook away! Delicious, tastes fresh!
I prefer knives to an electric knife; a good friend gave us an electric knife which I never used. A few years later, I discovered an electric knife is lazy man's way to cut the kernels off. We used to put up 100 ears of corn each year; so, easy was important..
We'd get several hands to help when it was time to put up corn. We have two of the LEM style corn cutters that we've had as long as I can remember, and I'm in my 60's! We would put up 52 quart bags of corn per family, thinking that would get us through the year. Of course it did and then some. We worked at a pretty good pace and moving that much corn from water pots, on the stove, to the corn cutters often made for a watery mess.
A friend told us of a method that they used and so we gave it a try. We would load the dish washer down with corn that was shucked, with silk removed and run it through a wash cycle. It's quick and you can get a lot of corn in a dish washer. It comes out pretty hot, but not a lot of water dripping everywhere. We'd cut the corn off the cob as fast as we could, bag it, and then cool it down. We've put up a lot of corn this way and it taste great long after the crop is gone.
