How To Freeze Corn

Hey there!  I wanted to share with you how I freeze sweet corn.
*This is how I do it and was taught, it might not be what is recommended by the powers that be so if you’re worried about safety, etc, check with your local extension office.* 
Living in Iowa we have some of the best tasting sweet corn there is!  My uncle plants a big plot of it and then when it’s ready my aunt sends out the “Its Ready” email.  So a couple of weeks ago Andy, the boys and I went and picked a laundry basket full of corn.
First things first, shucking the corn!  Not a hard job, just time consuming.

Once all the corn is shucked you want to cut off any bad parts and the skinny end where maybe the corn isn’t all the way matured.  Fill a canner or large pot just over half-way with water and bring it to a boil.
While waiting for the water to boil fill your kitchen sinks with cold water and add a bunch of ice – you want to have ice cold water to put the hot corn in to stop the cooking process.  You can buy a bag of ice from the gas station or freeze big cubes in butter bowls or some other plastic containers. 
Add 10-12 ears of corn to the boiling water.  Set the timer for 3 minutes.  When the timer goes off immediately pull the corn from the water and put it in the ice water.  Bring the pot of water back to a boil and repeat.

Once the cob of the corn feels warm, not hot, to the touch transfer the corn to the other sink to cool it down completely.  After the cob is completely cooled pull the corn out of the sink and put into a strainer to drain. Add more ice to the water if it’s warmed up. Next up, my favorite part – cutting the corn off the cob!
Get a shallow container or dish, stand the cob on end and use a serrated knife to cut the corn off the cob.  Don’t get too much of the cob, ick!  Then after the corn’s all cut off go back over the cob with the knife and scrape straight down – this gets all of the yummy juicy cream out of the cob which has a ton of flavor.

Empty the container into a large bowl when it fills up and grab another cob to continue cutting the corn off until all the corn is done.
How much corn you put into a bag is up to you.  How much does your family eat at one meal?  I change mine every year.  This year I did one and half ‘cups’.  I just pulled out one of the boys’ drinking cups.  Some years I’ve used a coffee mug, other years I’ve used actual measuring cups.  Just eye ball it.

Dump the corn into a freezer bag, push as much air out of it as possible and seal it up tight.  I push the corn as flat as I can get it because the flat bags freeze up faster and stack in the freezer easier.  Mark your bags with the year on them and get them to the deep freeze right away.  Yum!  It’s a process, but a fast one, and totally worth the work when you pull that yummy sweet corn out of the freezer in the middle of the winter!
Give this a try next year!  Even if you only get a few bags you’ll enjoy it!
Erin