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Homemade creamed corn is SO much better than canned, and a more quintessentially American dish you will never find – creamed corn is sweet, tender, and extremely satisfying! This is one of my favorite vegetable sides dishes!
For another recipe that uses corn, try this recipe for Creamy Corn Pudding. Or, for another creamy side dish, try some Creamed Peas.
Creamed Corn
Creamed corn isn’t something a lot of people outside of North America really eat or even know exists. However, for such a simple dish, it packs a huge amount of flavor and provides a tasty and rich side dish to whatever main course you want.
This recipe includes both whole milk and half & half, which gives it a lot of extra richness that other recipes don’t usually have.
You can use whatever type of corn you like here, so long as you remove any excess water that might come with your corn – if it is canned, drain it thoroughly, and if it was frozen, defrost well in advance of making this.
Ingredients for Creamed Corn
Please see the recipe card at the bottom of the post for the exact amounts of ingredients. This is just an overview for you to see if you have everything you need to make this dish.
- Butter
- Sweet Yellow Onion
- All-purpose
- Whole milk
- Half & half
- Corn (frozen, fresh or canned, however, you prefer)
- Sugar
- salt
- Black pepper
- Nutmeg
- Parsley
How to Make Creamed Corn
- Combine the butter and onion and fry over medium heat until cooked and translucent
- Add in the flour and cook until lightly browned
- Whisk in the milk, stirring until incorporated
- Mix in the cream, followed by the corn and your seasonings
- Cook while stirring until it is thick and the corn is heated through
- Remove from the heat and blend using an immersion blender until it reaches whatever texture you prefer
The Importance of The Right Kind of Onion
Most recipes that use onions will typically never actually say what kind of onion to use, but in this recipe, it is absolutely essential to only use the sweeter varieties.
If you go for a typical white onion, you are going to get an especially harsh, sulfuric taste to your creamed corn once it is cooked. Using a sweeter onion and grating, it gives you all of the onion flavors you need, alongside plenty of complex sweetness.
You can also use some of the incredibly sweet varieties, such as Vidalia, but just make sure that you reduce the sugar in the recipe a little bit to make up for. Vidalia is surprisingly sweet!
How to Store & Reheat Your Creamed Corn
Creamed corn doesn’t have the most appetizing appearance. After sitting around for a while, creamed corn tends to congeal and form a solid mass, leading many people to think that they cannot store and reheat their creamed corn.
Storing it is absolutely fine, so long as you put it in the fridge as soon as you can after serving it, as all of the milk and cream has a tendency to spoil if left out for too long.
The easiest way to reheat your creamed corn is to either microwave it until just warm or just eat it cold.
Though it might have a weird texture, cold creamed corn is surprisingly delicious, and the sweetness comes through a lot stronger, making it a bit more dessert-like than you would expect.
Enjoy!!
Karlynn
Creamed Corn
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1 small sweet yellow onion grated
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup whole milk
- 1 1/2 cups half and half cream
- 4 cups frozen, fresh or canned corn kernels drained if canned, defrosted if frozen
- 2-3 teaspoons granulated sugar to taste
- 1 teaspoon salt to taste
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- pinch nutmeg to garnish
- fresh minced parsley to garnish
Instructions
- In a skillet over medium heat, combine the butter and the onion and fry until the onion is cooked.
- Add in the flour and mix together, cooking until the flour has slightly browned and has a nutty browned smell to it. This will get rid of that "floury" taste that uncooked roux has.
- Slowly whisk in the 1/2 cup of milk, stirring rapidly to ensure that there are no lumps, until the milk has been added completely.
- Stir in the cream now, whisking to ensure that there are no lumps.
- Add in the corn, and season with sugar, salt and pepper to taste. Cook, stirring over medium heat until the mixture is thickened, and corn is cooked/heated through.
- Remove from the heat.
- Use an immersion blender to blend as much of the corn as you like, this is up to personal preference.
- Sprinkle with nutmeg and fresh minced parsley to serve.
Notes
- It is important that the onion is a sweeter variety, it will add to the flavor
- grating the onion ensures that it will cook properly in the mixture and not be hard. You can also mince it very finely.
- add sugar to personal taste! Some people love it sweeter
Nutrition
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Dan says
so much better than the canned stuff we used to like. Never going back to that stuff!! Thanks