Creamed Corn

Skip the canned creamed corn and make it homemade boos! This is legit the best Creamed Corn recipe on the internet y’all. We toss sweet corn with rich cream, butter, parmesan cheese, and a few sweet and savory ingredients making it so smooth, cheesy, creamy and loaded with flavor!!! Serve this Southern cream corn as a side for Sunday Supper or eat a whole bowl will Netflix and chilling. It’s your world boos!

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Y’all, corn was always on the dinner table in my childhood home. Whether it was fried up by my mama or made all creamy and saucy, it was a mainstay, especially during the summer. I had to give you boos a delish and easy corn recipe to throw together for the upcoming summer cookout, and this easy creamed corn recipe is it! You can legit throw this baby together in 15 minutes and get your entire life.

What is Creamed Corn?

Creamed Corn is a simple side dish of corn kernels cooked in a lightly seasoned creamy sauce. You can easily grab a can of creamed corn in the grocery store but ain’t nothing like the real thing baby. The store bought can sometimes be a little too sweet, full of preservatives and lacking in layers of flavor. This recipe by my assistant Leidi Rodriguez is exactly how cream corn should taste. It’s made with pantry-staple ingredients and can be pulled together in 15 minutes. It’s so good, you might eat it right out of the skillet.

The Lowdown on the Best Cream Corn Recipe

• Cuisine Inspiration: Southern Comfort Vibes
• Primary Cooking Method: Stovetop Cooking
• Dietary Info: Vegetarian
• Key Flavor: Creamy, Buttery, Sweet and Savory Corn
• Skill Level: Easy as easy can be boos!

Ingredients Needed to Make Homemade Creamed Corn

• Unsalted Butter: Adds richness and flavor to the cream corn. Salted is also great but just adjust the salt in the recipe.
• Shallot and Garlic: Both provide aromatic flavor to the dish.
• Sweet Yellow Corn: There’s nothing like sweet corn. It’s soft, sweet and buttery with perfect texture.
• Heavy Cream: Adds creaminess, decadence and richness to the dish.
• Granulated Sugar: Enhances the natural sweetness of the corn. Cane sugar is great too!
• Kosher Salt, Black Pepper, Cayenne Pepper: These seasonings add depth, flavor and a kick of spice to the creamed corn recipe.
• Whole Milk: This helps create a luscious sauce and thins out the cream a bit as well.
• All-Purpose Flour: The flour is used as a thickening agent for the sauce. It helps create structure.
• Parmesan Cheese: This adds a savory, salty, nutty and cheesy flavor and helps thicken the sauce.
• Chopped Parsley: This garnish adds freshness and pops of color.

How to Make Creamed Corn

Step 1: Sauté the Aromatics

1. Start by adding your butter to a cast iron or nonstick skillet and melt it down over medium-high heat.
2. Throw in the shallots and cook until soft and fragrant (about 2-3 minutes). Then add in the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Stir frequently so nothing sticks or burns. Let everything turn soft and fragrant.

Step 2: Start Creaming the Corn

1. Add the corn to the pan along with the heavy cream, sugar, salt, pepper and cayenne. Stir and cook for about 2 minutes. Make sure everything is well combined.
2. While it’s cooking up, whisk together milk and flour in a bowl until smooth. Slowly pour the mixture into the corn and stir to mix it in. Cook and continue to stir carefully (so it doesn’t get mushy) until the corn gets thick and heated through.

PRO TIP: Making a slurry helps to prevent the flour from clumping up that corn. We want it to be nice, smooth and creamy so make sure your milk mixture is blended up well before you add into your corn.

Step 3: Cheese It Up, Garnish and Serve!

1. Take the corn off the heat so it doesn’t continue to cook. Stir in the Parmesan and give it taste!
2. Season any which way you’d like and serve while it’s fresh and hot. 

How to Serve this Cream Style Corn

• Sunday Supper: Get your comfort food on with a Southern feast boos. Serve up the creamed corn recipe with fried chicken, smothered pork chops, candied yams, Southern green beans, collard greens and Southern cornbread. Now that’s good eatin y’all!
• Weeknight Dinner: When you need to get dinner on the table after work, serve this up with my fave meatloaf, cream cheese mashed potatoes and Jiffy cornbread.
• Elegant Entertaining: Cream corn can also get sophisticated y’all. Serve with a pan seared steak, garlic mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts.
• Tex-Mex Snack: Grab some tortilla chips and get to dipping. It tastes so great this way. Especially when you serve it up with birria tacos, steak fajitas and Mexican rice.
• Summer Cookout: Ain’t nothing like this on the table with some baby back ribs, potato salad, cole slaw and sweet tea.

Recipe Substitutions for this Creamed Corn Recipe

• Corn: If the fresh options ain’t great, grab some frozen corn. It’s better than using canned. If you really only have canned, just make sure you use canned corn kernels and drain and rinse completely. Just keep in mind the texture and flavor won’t be the same.
• Heavy Cream: You can lighten this up with some half-and-half instead. Or if you use milk, use whole milk and add in a bit more flour in the slurry to thicken up the sauce.
• Parmesan Cheese: No parm around? Grab another hard cheese like asiago or pecorino romano!
• Parsley: You can easily substitute parsley with cilantro, basil or chives.

Recipe Variations and Additions

• Bacon: The addition of chopped up smoky bacon will add a nice crispy texture switch up. Stir some in the Southern creamed corn and also add to the top as well.
• Herb Vibes: Throw in some chives, dill or even some tarragon for an earthy and fresh twist.
• Heat it Up!: Add a little chopped up chipotle peppers from adobo sauce or diced jalapenos for a nice kick of spice. Cook that up with your garlic and shallots. Just don’t go too bold y’all!
• Vegan: Replace the butter with vegan butter sticks. Then sub in some plant-based milk like oat milk for the milk and creamy coconut milk for the heavy cream. Since vegan cheeses don’t melt exactly the same, you will need to be careful here. You could always leave it out and add in a bit of nutritional yeast or ground cashew “cheese” to give more of a cheesy flavor vibe.
• Gluten Free: Sub in cornstarch or a 1:1 gluten-free flour blend instead of using all-purpose flour. Most cheeses are naturally gluten-free but check the label just in case.

Expert Tips and Tricks

• Fresh Corn is Best: While this recipe works great with frozen, fresh corn is always the move boos. There is nothing like it y’all. Check for bright green husks and avoid any that are brown and dry. Check out the kernels to make sure they aren’t damaged or missing too.
• Cut the Corn: To get those perfect kernels, stand the ear of corn upright on a cutting board or inside of a bundt pan hole and carefully slice down with a sharp knife.
• Don’t Overcook: While you shouldn’t rush the cooking process, just make sure the corn is cooked until its tender. But if you overcook the corn kernels, they can get mushy, loose their texture and sweetness, and who wants that?
• Slurry: Don’t skip the slurry. Whisking the milk and flour together until smooth before adding to your corn will make sure that you have a smooth and creamy sauce.
• Adjust: Let it cook too long? Add in more milk to thin it out. Not thick enough? Stir in more slurry or cook a bit longer. Make it just how you like it.

How to Store Southern Creamed Corn

• Fridge: Cool your creamed corn down to room temperature before storing it up. Then store any leftovers in an airtight container and pop in the fridge. It should last about 3 days.
• Freezer: Throw your cream style corn into an airtight, freezer-safe container or plastic bag. It should last about 2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight before reheating.
• Reheat: When you want to reheat, you can either do it over the store or in the microwave. Just add a splash of milk to the cream corn recipe to loosen it up a bit since it gets pretty thick once stored.

Frequently Asked Questions

My Favorite Corn Recipes

• Corn Fritters
• Mexican Cornbread
• Corn Salad
• Southern Fried Corn
• Corn Pone
• Corn Spoonbread
• Corn Pudding
• Scalloped Corn