Freezing Sweet Corn

The other day we picked some of our sweet corn and we blanched it and put up a couple of gallon bags of sweet corn on the cob.  You might recall, we made a delicious summer garden pesto pizza with sweet corn and tomatoes.  We also ate some corn on the cob for supper with melted butter on top.  Today, we'll show you how we freeze sweet corn in quart bags.  But first you have to pick it...

Fresh picked

This particular variety is an heirloom seed corn called Stowell's Evergreen Sweet corn, so it is not the vibrant yellow color as the other variety we plant, but it is delicious.  We take the husks and silk off and cut off any spots that have pest damage.

Shucked ear of sweet corn

Then we blanch the corn on the cob by dropping them in a pot of boiling water for between 7-9 minutes, depending on the size of the ears.  Once the time is up, we remove them from the boiling water and immediately dunk them in a sink full of ice water to stop the cooking process.  We'll leave them to cool for about 10 minutes and then drain the water, allowing the corn to dry.

Then with a sharp knife, we cut the corn off the cob.  It will come off in big 'panels'...

Cutting it off the cob

but they break into individual kernels once you scrape them off the cutting board and into the bowl. We make sure we get every last bit of corn off the cob as we don't want to waste any of that flavor to the cob that will be going into the compost pile.

8 cups of sweet corn cut off the cob

Here is the money shot, showing the delicious, milky sweet corn.  It would make a fine meal right here if you had a spoon handy, but we'll save it for another day.  I'm thinking that a corn macque choux would be tasty.  

Fresh sweet corn Zoomed in

For now, we scoop the corn out into quart freezer bags, squeezing the air out of the bags and laying them flat in the freezer where they take up little space.  If you don't have much freezer space, this is the optimal way to freeze it as opposed to freezing it on the cob.  We do, however, freeze some on the cob because the cob provides some extra good flavor when boiled in soups.

Two bags about to go into the freezer

Soon we'll make corn macque choux and invite you over to eat with us!