"Freezing Sweet Corn"

Many years ago I sat in the kitchen of an Iowa farm house and ate the best frozen corn I have ever had in my life. Then or since.


It was my dad's cousin's kitchen. Among my Iowa relatives food was always at the heart of hospitality.


I will never forget how much I enjoyed that corn, sweet and crisp months after the sweet corn season. I just couldn't believe it. I remember how my cousin laughed when I praised it over and over again.

Decades later I still wondered if I could replicate it.

This year I decided to try.

I started with three dozen ears of fresh sweet corn from my favorite produce stand.

They assured me it had been picked just that morning. I peeled it, washed it and removed as much of the silk as I could. I also broke off the extra stems.

I blanched the corn in a pot of rapidly boiling water. (It was rapidly boiling before I put the corn in). I didn't salt the water.

I read many different versions of this particular technique. Times for blanching the corn varied from 5 to 10 minutes.

I actually only cook good fresh sweet corn for six minutes if I'm going to eat it so for freezing I decided to reduce the time I blanched the corn to 4 minutes.
I like a nice, crisp kernel.

Here's another blanching tip: don't try to cram too many ears of corn in the pot at once. Three or four at most. I did two pots at once to speed the process.

Then I immediately put the corn in an ice bath until it cooled. This is to keep it from continuing to cook. Leave it in the bath for about the same amount of time as it was in the boiling water.

While I was blanching and cooling my husband was cutting the blanched corn off the cob.

It's really nice to have a second person for this job.

He used a corn cutting device I spotted at Williams Sonoma. It worked great.

You can use a sharp knife.

I've also seen those round corn cutters that slide down over the whole cob. Those would probably make quick work of the job, but I liked the way this cutter gave us control over how deep we cut the kernels.

We nibbled on some kernels. They were sweet and delicious. The key to keeping them this way is to freeze them with as little air as possible. So why I took no photos of this part of the process is beyond me. Sorry about that.

We put the corn in quart sized Ziplock baggies. We put varying amounts in each bag figuring we'd use them for different things. Some for eating. Some for adding to soup or stew, etc.

We put a straw in the bag and closed the zipper around the straw. We sucked out all the air we could and then quickly took the straw out and zipped the baggie closed. We got pretty close to a vacuum seal.

Some how I just thing these little bags of summer sunshine are going to make this winter a little more bearable.