Fresh Fried Corn (Shucking, Silking, Cooking, and Freezing)
An easy but nonetheless scrumptious Southern side dish, learn how to make buttery fresh fried corn from start to finish.
Lay out a table with every dish imaginable, absolutely everything under the sun, and if there is fresh fried corn on that table, you’ll know where to find me.
There is nothing in this world like the flavor of fresh corn, shucked and cut off the cob and cooked up in a skillet. No matter how hard companies may try (and I do appreciate their efforts), no frozen corn kernels or canned corn can even come close. The taste is night and day, as if it were two different vegetables entirely.
When we were little, shucking corn was a family affair. Mama would put a few buckets on the front porch and we’d each get our own brush and then everyone would set to work. We’d shuck a few bushels (at least) and she’d set to cutting it off the cob and cooking it up for everyone. I remember being able to have all the corn we wanted at dinner but it seems now that I’m grown and have my own family, I can never have such bounty. No matter how much I make, we always want more.
Today I’m going to talk you through how I make my fresh fried corn recipe from start to finish. We’re going to shuck them together and cook them together. It’s a Southern Plate family affair! My Southern fried corn is so simple but so good. All you need is margarine, salt and pepper, and a skillet. I’ve included some serving suggestions below because this side dish goes perfectly with so many Southern dishes.
Alright, grab your corn on a cob and let’s go!
Recipe Ingredients
- Fresh corn
- A stiff brush (a dish brush works fine)
- Margarine or unsalted butter
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Bacon grease
- Water
How to Make Fresh Fried Corn
Shucking the corn
First, peel back the husks on your ear of corn.
Like so.
Remove what silks you can with your hand.
Then take hold of all of the husks at the base and…
Break it off.
If kids are watching, you should make a big GRRR sound when you do this and act like you are straining really hard. It will impress them, honest.
Here is our almost ready ear of corn. There are a few silks left on it that we need to get at though.
Silking the corn
If you take your stiff brush and just brush against the directions of the silks, that should do the trick. You may have to grab a few and pull them off.
If a few end up in your corn, the world won’t end. In fact, you won’t really notice because once you taste this, I doubt you’ll find time to draw breath again until you are done devouring as much as you can possibly fit onto your plate. But maybe that’s just me. 🙂
Here is our corn. It wants to be cooked. It wants us to eat it. And it wants to make us happy.
Good corn.
I am using eight ears and it was enough for four of us to have generous helpings. However, I could have used 16 ears and we would have eaten all of that, too. I know I keep going on and on about that but I’m stressing a point here.
Did I mention how much I love fresh fried corn?
Cut away the corn
Take each ear and stand it up like so. Run your knife blade down the side to cut the kernels off.
HOWEVER, you don’t want to cut them off right at the ear, you want to leave a bit of the kernel bottom on the ear for the scrapings. The scrapings are what is going to give our fried corn its body. So basically, try to cut about 3/4 of the kernel off but leave the rest.
Mama likes to place her ear of corn in the center of an angel food cake pan and then cut the kernels off and scrape it. The center of the pan helps hold the ear and the kernels and scrapings fall right into the pan below. I would do this if I ever actually used an angel food cake pan enough that I didn’t have to go hunt it down when I wanted to shuck corn. Angel food pan = tube pan.
Kernels cut off, ready to scrape!
See how all of the little holes in the cob are filled? In the next picture, you’ll know what I’m talking about better.
Take the blade of your knife and scrape down the corn cob. See how the holes are empty now?
We’ve gotten all of that good pulp out of there.
If you have stuff all over your hands as I do, you’ve done well!
Here is our corn all ready to go!
I know this smells good but you don’t want to eat it now. This is due to reasons that I do not feel the need to document on a food blog. Trust me on this.
Cook
Corn
First.
Cooking the fresh fried corn
Now, in a large skillet, put about two tablespoons of butter or margarine and a tablespoon or so of bacon drippings.
Add your corn and about a 1/2 cup of water.
How much water you end up needing is really dependent on your corn. Some corn will be starchier and need more, some corn will be thin and actually need thickening. For my corn here, I actually ended up needing a cup of water. If your corn ends up looking a little thin, you can stir in a tablespoon of corn starch or flour in with two or three tablespoons of water (mix it up pretty well) and then add that to your corn.
Salt and pepper to taste.
This is always a very personal thing. I am using about 1/2 tsp of pepper but if you prefer more peppery corn, by all means, add more!
I added about 1/2 tsp of salt too. These are good starting points but most people add more.
In general, if you are preparing a meal for guests you should always under-season and then allow them to season their food to their personal taste.
Bring that to a bit of a boil and then lower the temperature of the stove eye to allow it to just simmer.
Stir it often and cook for about 30 minutes.
Yum, YUM, YUM!!
I could just dive into a vat of this, I swear.
Storage
- Store the cooked corn leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Quickly reheat in the microwave or on the stovetop.
- If you want to freeze for later, just cook about halfway through and then cool and place in freezer bags or containers and label. Thaw when ready to use and cook for half an hour just as described above. It will last up to 8 months in the freezer.
Recipe Notes
- Here are some variations on this fresh fried corn recipe:
- Add 1/2 a yellow onion (finely chopped) and 1/2 a bell pepper (finely chopped) to the skillet 2 minutes before you add the corn.
- For heat, add a finely chopped jalapeno or chipotle pepper. Another option is to sprinkle the dish with a dash of cayenne pepper or crushed red pepper flakes.
- For added flavor, sprinkle your corn with some Cajun or Creole seasoning (I love Tony Chachere’s).
- Before serving, sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley, basil, green onion, or chives.
- For extra sweetness, add a spoonful of granulated sugar (adjust according to taste).
- Enhance the bacon flavor and add cooked and crumbled bacon bits to your skillet fried corn.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with fresh fried corn?
This is a versatile Southern side dish, so you can serve it with so many main meals:
- Burgers (check out my meatloaf burgers).
- Pulled pork
- Pork chops with velvet cream sauce
- Southern fried chicken
- Grilled chicken tenders
- Crockpot beef ribs
- Southern fried catfish
Can you use frozen corn or canned corn instead?
While this recipe definitely tastes best with fresh corn, you can use frozen corn or canned corn if you’re in a pinch. Just make sure it’s thawed, well-drained, and patted dry before adding it to the skillet. You may also need to adjust seasonings according to taste.
You may also want to check out these corn recipes:
Superfast Corn Succotash Recipe
Ingredients
- 8 fresh ears of corn
- margarine or unsalted butter
- salt and pepper
- water
- bacon grease
Instructions
- Shuck and remove silks from the corn. Cut kernels off the cob with a sharp knife, leaving about 1/4 of the kernel. Scrape cobs clean with the blade of the knife.8 fresh ears of corn
- Place about 3 tablespoons of butter and a tablespoon or so of bacon grease in a skillet. Add corn and corn pulp. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add 1/2 cup of water (more if needed).margarine or unsalted butter, salt and pepper, water, bacon grease
- Bring to a slight boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to simmer and continue cooking and stirring for about 30 minutes.
- If you are wanting to freeze for later, just cook about halfway through and then cool and place in freezer bags or containers and label. Thaw when ready to use and cook for half an hour just as described above.
Nutrition
That is just the way I learned from my Gramma to make fried corn when I was growing up in Kentucky. It is absolutely my favorite way to eat corn – nothing else is even close! Fried corn, fresh green beans (not crunchy, mind…cooked a while with a little bacon grease and some new potatoes down in the pot), fresh sliced tomato and cucumbers, corn bread, sweet tea….who needs meat?
Melody, I can relate to the corn blowing down. We can’t grow it on our place down here in SC. Our “dirt” is white sand and the least wind blows the stalks over. Dh has tried standing them back up but once they have fallen they are even more prone to tip. We just can’t stake every stalk!! Not to mention that stakes don’t stand up real well either. 🙁
Christy, the closest I’ve come to fried corn using anything but fresh corn (which IS the best) is that cream style frozen corn that comes in the package that looks a little like an ear of corn. Or a pound of sausage, depending on how strong your imagination is. In winter or if corn prices stay too high it isn’t too bad.
Wow… Its busy in here… This sounds yummy!! Got me wanting it really bad. About the only veggie I get DH to eat is corn, so I have happy to see all the ways you’ve been posting to fix it.
Hi Christy!
Love your site and the recipes! I’m next door, in Atlanta but fixin to move to the mountains.
I grew up on a farm in middle GA (onion country) and we always put up field corn in the summer (couple hundred ears at the time). I’ve never figured out how to stand the ear of corn up and cut the kernels off. Sounds dangerous, but I hold the ear in my left hand and cut towards me with the butcher knife (over a big enamel dish pan), scraping back down the cob to get the pulp out. Haven’t cut myself yet (but I probably just jinxed it). Mama always cut her corn this way, too. My favorite knife for cutting corn is one of the Old Hickory ones, the kind you can actually sharpen. I’ve got a couple of nice (and expensive) chef’s knives, but they don’t cut corn as well as my old one does.
As for bacon grease, I keep a quart jar of the stuff all the time and use it for a bunch of stuff, from fried corn to green beans to cornbread!
LOVE the photos…that’s a heck of a lot of corn though – lol. I see some good old fashioned cornbread with a few handfuls of that corn mixed in.
Christy,
Loved your fried corn.My favorite veg.The year I got married, my in-laws had a huge corn patch. Boy!!!did I learn to cut corn off the cob.It was fun,lots of work but the corn was super tasteful when cooked. Keep up the good recipes and news. I love receiving mail from you!! Makes me want to cook more often.
I always say “eyes” also.. That is great southern talk and I love it.
Fried corn!!Yum add some fried okra and you have my favorite meal. I would eat another helping instead of desert. We had the corn assembly line also. We would put up 500 ears at a time. We used a corn cutter to cut off the corn. You can find them in hardware stores. You have to know how to adjust it to get it just right. It clips the tops and them scrape the juice out of it. It’s on a board about 4in wide and 12 in long. We put a screw in the end and hooked it in the hole in the rim of the dishpan. Everything just falls into the dishpan. Can’t wait for the Farmers Market to open.
In the early 1980’s, when our son was ~14 and in 4-H, he had a 4-acre sweet corn project. Corn would “come in” just after a heavy rain. At about daybreak, we would pull on rubber boots and grab several 5-gal buckets and head for the truck patch. We would mire up in mud, but we managed to pick enough fresh corn to fill a pickup bed. Our neighbors and friends would have already gotten the word around that his corn was ‘in’. My son would take orders days before, oftentimes for 20 doz. for a single homemaker. Our son enlisted help from us (Dad and Mom), and sometimes even the hired farm workers to help pick the corn. He would lay the corn under the shade tree in piles of one dozen. By mid-morning all the picked corn would be gone, and we would be ready the next morning to do it again, until the kernel was too hard for cut-off corn.
I spent my first 52 years in SE Ohio and the next ten in Florida and have never heard the term “eyes” used for a stove burner. I moved back to my hometown in Ohio last month. Corn is very popular here in season and my favorite way to eat it is to leave it on the cob and mow through it like a typewriter and my appetite for it knows no bounds. Carbonated beverages are pop here and it took me forver to convert to soda in FL and now I am having to revert back to calling it pop. It is all location, location, location. I mentioned a toboggan at work one day in FL and no one in the building knew I was referring to a cold weather knitted cap with a yarn pom-pom on top. Toboggan to them meant a sled. We laughed all week over that.