Freezer Corn: How To

My husband and I planted corn this year in our garden. I’d heard that it was difficult to grow, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway. Well.. it grew.. and was pretty.. but in the end, we only had about three ears. We were most excited because the corn was grown for non-gmo ‘seeds’ (which is really important to us). So when our harvest tanked I was on the lookout for several weeks for organic non-gmo corn.  Our local health food store had it for about a week and that was it. It was $1/EAR. Goodness. I didn’t realize at that point that I wanted to make freezer corn, and at $1 each, that was out of the question anyway.  We had only bought five or six ears. I looked at two different farmer’s markets and no such luck.  I finally fell in to some you could say that fit our criteria.  My friend Ryan recommended what ended up being  the most wonderful corn I think I’ve ever eaten.  Want to know the best part? It was only $4/DOZEN!

So lets get started:

To determine how much we wanted to freeze, we calculated how many ears per week we wanted to have throughout the year. We purchased eight dozen. You will first have to shuck your corn. This part wasn’t entirely my favorite because of the wormys that are sometimes at the tip, so I enlisted the hubs to do that part. Also remember to remove all of the silk.

Depending on how much corn you buy, you made end up with a pile like this! We were able to fit all of this in to our composter. Pretty stoked that we were able to find a use for it and not throw it away. But of course, there’s nothing wrong with throwing it away.  Out of all that we bought, we found less than 10 worms!

Once the husks and silk have been removed from your cobs you will boil it in a large stock pot or canner for three minutes. You don’t want to cook it any longer, so set a timer and watch closely. I boiled 10-12 cobs at a time. If you have a camp chef, this would be great to do outside. I don’t have one, so we just used the stove top and it worked out fine. You should see the size of my kitchen. It’s amazing the things we are able to get done in there. The canning at times can be a bit challenging but we make it work.

Once the three minutes is up you will immediately transfer your corn (using tongs) to cold water. I filled my sink with cold water and also some ice cubes (to make sure it was extra cold). It will only take a few minutes for the corn to cool down. When it’s cool enough to handle, stand the corn on one end and using a sharp knife (a pairing knife works best) you’ll cut in about a 1/4″ in to remove just the corn kernels from the top of the cob to the bottom. You don’t want to cut in too deep because it you’ll get the white bitter core, which you don’t want.

I actually was quite surprised we collected as much as we did in the end. It was so delicious I couldn’t stop snacking. Without any butter or salt even, that tells you how good it was. Once all of your corn is off the cob you will bag it up in freezer bags. We actually attempted preserving the corn with our Food Saver however it was so powerful in getting the air out, it was taking all of the yummy delicious corn juices with it. So we scrapped that idea and just used high-quality freezer bags. We ended up froze 2 cups of corn per quart-sized freezer bag. We bagged just over 30 bags.

The whole process didn’t take too terribly long. We started late morning and ended in the afternoon. Close to 4 1/2 – 5’ish hours. It was also a lot easier to clean up then canning is.  I’m looking forward to having fresh summer corn throughout the next year. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before now. We spent $32 for the corn, but the reward is priceless. Give it a try!