Content ID
304410
Freezing sweet corn
Preserve your garden's bounty or stock up at the sweet corn stand to enjoy the taste of summer all year.
When the fields are bursting with sweet corn, you might be wondering what to do with it all. Fortunately, sweet corn is easy to freeze, so you can enjoy the harvest all year long.
Lynn Blanchard of the Better Homes and Gardens test kitchen says sweet corn should be frozen within two to three days of being picked. It also needs to be cooked a bit before cutting kernels off the cob.
"Cook the corn on the cob for four minutes. A lot of times that step is referred to as blanching. Basically what you're doing is you're quick-cooking the corn to deactivate the enzyme that will deteriorate the quality of the corn over time," says Blanchard. "If you're going to freeze it on the cob, you'll want to cook it 7-11 minutes because the cob also has that enzyme in it so you need to heat up the cob as well."
Immediately plunge the corn into ice water to stop the blanching process. Keep it in the cold water for the same amount of time it was in the boiling water. Dry the cobs as well as you can, and cut off the kernels.
The container should be air-tight. It prevents freezer odors from seeping in, and keeps moisture out.
Blanchard says the test kitchen experts get a lot of questions during the canning season, and one of those is why frozen corn sometimes turns out mushy.
"They expect it to be that crisp, fresh-from-the-garden taste that you have in the summer. A lot of times it's either because the corn was not processed as quickly as it could have been, so maybe it wasn't at its peak," says Blanchard. "Or, it was cooked too long because sometimes that will really affect the end product after freezing. So, it's good not to over-cook it, you just want to heat it up to get that enzyme deactivated."
Label each bag or container with the contents, amount, and date, and freeze it for up to one year.
Lynn Blanchard of the Better Homes and Gardens test kitchen says sweet corn should be frozen within two to three days of being picked. It also needs to be cooked a bit before cutting kernels off the cob.
"Cook the corn on the cob for four minutes. A lot of times that step is referred to as blanching. Basically what you're doing is you're quick-cooking the corn to deactivate the enzyme that will deteriorate the quality of the corn over time," says Blanchard. "If you're going to freeze it on the cob, you'll want to cook it 7-11 minutes because the cob also has that enzyme in it so you need to heat up the cob as well."
Immediately plunge the corn into ice water to stop the blanching process. Keep it in the cold water for the same amount of time it was in the boiling water. Dry the cobs as well as you can, and cut off the kernels.
The container should be air-tight. It prevents freezer odors from seeping in, and keeps moisture out.
Blanchard says the test kitchen experts get a lot of questions during the canning season, and one of those is why frozen corn sometimes turns out mushy.
"They expect it to be that crisp, fresh-from-the-garden taste that you have in the summer. A lot of times it's either because the corn was not processed as quickly as it could have been, so maybe it wasn't at its peak," says Blanchard. "Or, it was cooked too long because sometimes that will really affect the end product after freezing. So, it's good not to over-cook it, you just want to heat it up to get that enzyme deactivated."
Label each bag or container with the contents, amount, and date, and freeze it for up to one year.
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