How to Freeze Sweet Corn

Today I’m breaking down how to freeze sweet corn because the best corn in the world is fresh summer corn. While there is nothing that can quite compare to eating corn on the cob in season, corn that you freeze for yourself comes pretty close.

How to Freeze Fresh Corn

I am an absolute maniac when it comes to fresh sweet corn. Living in Western New York gives me access to some of the best tasting corn on the planet. We’re talking about corn so good, you can cook up a dozen ears, lay out a stick of butter and the salt, and make an entire meal out of it.

For me, there’s an incomparable joy in biting into a ear of corn so fresh that the kernels literally burst with delicately sweet corn milk. And the corn I buy in stores and in cans is perfectly fine, but it fails to capture some of that ephemeral magic of summer sweet corn.

But there is a way to capture a little of that fleeting glory to eat through the winter. You can freeze it! If you’ve never had home frozen corn, you’re in for a real treat. It still tastes like summer!

My grandma taught me how to freeze fresh corn and how to can it both, and my preference is the frozen version because you have so many options.

How to Freeze Corn

Freezing sweet corn is not complicated and doesn’t require special equipment, but it does take a little investment in time. It’s not as big a time commitment as canning corn or tomatoes, for instance, but you do want to get it all done in one day, so plan appropriately.

The general timeline goes something like this:

• 10:00 am: put big stockpot of water filled 2/3 of the way on to boil
• 10-10:30 am: shuck corn
• 10:30-11:00 am: blanch corn and put in cold water bath
• 11:30 am to 12 pm: wrap or vacuum seal corn on the cob or cut corn from cobs
• 12-12:30 pm: portion and vacuum seal or bag cut corn, label, and freeze.
• 12:30 pm: Pour myself a big cup of iced tea and put my feet up

Blanching is a basic cooking technique that involves dropping food into a pot of boiling water, cooking it for a couple minutes, and then submerging it in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. It’s an extra step, I know.

While there are a great many folks out there who say it’s absolutely fine to freeze corn without blanching it or just toss whole, unshucked ears into the freezer, I’m going to go ahead and call full stop on that. Science has my back here.

Blanching does so many things for a vegetable before it goes to the freezer. It stops the enzyme action that leads to spoilage, preserves flavours and textures, and helps vegetables retain nutrients and their vibrant colours. Not blanching vegetables can lead to weird textures and flavours.

Part of this is because when liquid freezes, it expands. When the liquid expands in raw corn, it breaks down the cell walls and can leave you with corn that is both tough and floppy.

If you’re going to the trouble of preserving sweet corn, you may as well do that one extra step that guarantees your work will be delicious!

Freezing Sweet Corn

At the bare minimum, equipment-wise, you’ll need just a few things: a stock pot big enough to submerge whole ears of shucked corn, a sharp knife, a cutting board, and some freezer bags.

That will be sufficient for putting up frozen corn that will be good for about 6 months, so long as you remove as much air as you can from the bags. Air is the enemy in the freezer and creates space for vegetables and fruits to become freezer burned.

You can get around this by closing the zipper on the bag 3/4 of the way. gently compress the corn while squeezing the air out of the bag and closing the zipper the rest of the way. Alternatively, you can close the zipper almost entirely, slide a straw in, and suck as much air out as possible.

To truly safeguard the corn you worked to preserve, portion the corn into meal-sized amounts and use a vacuum sealer. This is my preferred method. This is the model I have and have used for years.

Freezing Corn on the Cob

This truly is one of the easiest food preservation projects I do annually. When I freeze sweet corn, I focus most of my attention on corn off of the cob. But I always freeze corn on the cob as well!

When freezing corn on the cob, I do a couple of meals’ worth of whole corn on the cob. I also cut about 6 or 8 ears into quarters to use in stews and soups. This way, I have all my bases covered.

Food Preservation

Have you been bit by the home food preservation bug or are you simply looking for ways to hang on to an excellent garden yield? Here are some more tried and true recipes from my kitchen to yours!

Join the hundreds of folks who make this annually! Delicious, nutritious homemade Jellied Cranberry Sauce with a hint of orange is just what your cranberry sauce lovers want. Tangy, sweet, and a holiday classic, your own cranberry sauce is the perfect complement to any roast you serve!

Serve this updated classic zesty corn relish with everything! Tacos, chili, beans and rice, pot roast, grilled or broiled chicken, pork, or fish, sausage, pair beautifully with it. Stir it into jarred salsa for extra texture or serve it alone with tortilla chips as a stand alone salsa. You can even chill a jar and serve it as a side salad! Trust me. Once you’ve tried this, you’re going to want shelves lined with crunchy, savoury, sweet, zippy, Zesty Corn Relish.

Rum Cherries and Boozy Cherry Molasses are one of my favourite two-fer recipes. While you’re making these gorgeous, luscious rum-soaked, sweet cherries, you happen to be making the incredible, ruby-hued, rum-infused cherry drizzle that improves ice cream, crumbles, and seltzer water.

This Smoky Roasted Salsa is the little black dress of the salsa world; non-traditional, smoky, fine-textured, and slightly spicy with a bold flavour that’ll knock you out, this salsa is equally wonderful when dunked with chips, poured over meats in a slow-cooker, or spooned and baked on enchiladas.

Ginger peach preserves: sweet, fragrant, slightly tart peaches paired with luscious, thick ginger syrup. It’s hard to beat this on toast or ice cream!

Instant Hummus in a Jar. We are talking about chickpeas canned with lemon juice, garlic, and sesame seeds; everything you need for hummus in one pretty little package.

Boiled Cider is the pure essence of apple and everything wonderful about fall condensed into one syrup. And it’s ridiculously easy to make!

And if you prefer to put your food up in the freezer, we’ve got you covered there, too! Best Thing Tomatoes are truly the easiest and best way to preserve all of your ripe tomatoes. This intense, concentrated puree of tomatoes, garlic, onions, and herbs gives serious depth of flavour to every dish its in and on.

Super smooth, ultra Creamy Tomato Basil Soup is both the best and easiest way to make soup from fresh tomatoes. You’re going to love this so much, you’ll want to double, triple or even quadruple the recipe to keep on hand in the freezer long after summer and fresh tomatoes are a pleasant memory.

The Garlic Buffalo Sauce recipe I’m sharing here will have you singing “The Bills Make me Wanna Shout!”. And if you just can’t do that, it will -at the very least- have you extremely glad that Buffalo and their magical wings exist.