Freezing Fresh Corn

Freezing Corn from the Farm



Liliana husks corn.



      Since my Mom and Dad grow corn on their farm, freezing corn for the winter was always a rite of summer.  As a child, my favorite task was to move steaming hot corn from the first ice bath to the second ice bath.  What is more fun than playing with water and ice in the kitchen sink while my mother, aunts, and cousins scurried around and chatter abounded?  This past week, Liliana helped to husk some corn (for a few corn ears!) and then Mom and my Aunt Amy and I froze a batch of corn.



       In case you have access to fresh corn and haven't done it before, freezing corn is simple in its process.  Basically, you want to partially cook the corn, then quickly change to corn's temperature to be as cold as possible as quickly as possible (blanching) so that the corn does not continue to cook.  Once that is done, the corn is cut off the corn ear, scooped into a freezer bag, then frozen.



Boiling the corn
 for 3 minutes.





Spraying cold water

on the cooked corn



       We start the process by husking the corn, taking the time to remove as much of the corn silk as possible (and cut away any imperfections or bad spots).  Water in large pots is heated to a boil (due to boiling water, I sent my girls to bed for their nap so that they were safely away from the stove).  Once the water is boiling, add the husked ears of corn, being sure that the corn is mostly submersed in the water.  When the water is back to boiling, time it for 3 minutes, then remove the corn from the boiling water.  We use tongs and place the steaming hot ears in a colander that is on top of a pan.  Quickly move to the kitchen sink and either run under cold water or submerse in an ice bath. 



Corn chilling in an ice bath.



       Once the corn is slightly cooler, move the corn to a second ice bath (a large bowl of water with frozen chunks of ice--we usually freeze water ahead of time in 1/2 gallon milk containers).  Once the corn is sufficiently cold, take the corn and cut off the corn kernels (a serrated knife works best for me).  Place the corn kernels in a Ziploc freezer bag, and place freezer bags in freezer.  It is important to immediately take batches of the filled freezer bags to the freezer since if left out, the corn will continue to cook and become bad tasting.  And that is all there is to it! 



Liliana sneaks a taste!



       You'll then have lots of bags of corn to heat up all winter!  If you have a different corn freezing variation, I'd love to hear it!  I love to freeze corn--maybe because it makes me so happy to think that on some cold, snowy winter's day, I can feast on a beautifully steamy corn dish and taste the freshness of harvest-time!

Vera Rose with the feed sack of left-over husks (to be fed to the cattle!)