Fresh Cream Style Corn
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Fresh Cream Style Corn is made from corn kernels that are cut off the cob! They're mixed with butter, seasonings, and heavy cream in this classic southern recipe. One bite will take you back to Grandma's house in a jiffy!
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Why You'll Love It
- Easy: fresh cream style corn made from whole kernel corn on the cob
- Great taste: amazing flavor that pairs well with all types of entrees and sides
- Resourceful: great way to use ears of corn from a summer garden
- Holiday favorite: perfect for an Easter ham or the star of your Thanksgiving table
- Make ahead: can be made in advance for busy holiday meals!
What is Cream Style Corn?
To southerners, there's nothing better than cream style corn made with fresh corn on the cob. When mixed with heavy cream and blended with its own juices, it thickens without any flour to make a delicious gluten-free dish in less than 30 minutes!
You haven't tasted real southern cooking until you've eaten creamed corn out of a cast iron skillet. (ad) It's also not the holidays unless a large skillet of southern creamed corn is sizzling on the stove!
Cream style corn tastes great with brown sugar glazed ham, macaroni and cheese and roasted broccoli. Some folks love to serve it over buttermilk biscuits! The bacon grease that's left behind in the skillet adds a ton of flavor to this perfect side dish that's a favorite old-fashioned southern recipe.
Equipment
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Ingredients
This easy recipe only requires a few ingredients that can be found in most grocery stores or markets. To make this dish, all you need are a few ears of fresh corn from the grocery store or garden.
Add a few simple seasonings, and you'll create a buttery side with a creamy sauce that's loaded with southern-style flavor. Quantities are listed in the recipe card at the bottom of this article.
- bacon strips, cooked and chopped
- fresh corn on the cob
- real butter
- small onion, chopped
- heavy cream
- garlic salt
- black pepper
How to Make It
Cook the bacon in a skillet and drain on paper towels. Let cool, then chop into small pieces. Leave 1 tablespoon of bacon grease behind in the skillet.
Shuck 4 cobs of corn and cut the corn off the cob into a large bowl with a sharp knife (yields around 4 cups). Put 2 cups of corn into a blender and pulse several times to break it up. Pour back into bowl.
In a skillet, melt a little butter over medium-low heat with the bacon grease. Saute' onion in butter for 2 minutes. Add all of the corn from the bowl to the skillet.
Pour heavy cream into skillet and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until corn starts to thicken. Add garlic salt and pepper. Mix well. Sprinkle the bacon pieces on top as a garnish.
Storage and Freezing
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. To reheat, simply place in the microwave in 30 second intervals until heated throughout. Or, warm on the stovetop in a saucepan over medium-low heat.
To freeze, place leftovers in an airtight container and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. Sometimes when adding cream and butter to a recipe, it will separate after freezing. If this happens, try adding more milk and stirring vigorously over the heat.
Variations
If you like this dish, you might also enjoy Cream Cheese Corn Dip as an appetizer before the meal begins!
- Make this great side dish in a slow cooker and keep warm until ready to serve.
- Spice it up by adding cayenne pepper or diced jalapeño peppers.
- Use yellow corn for gorgeous color, or mix yellow and white corn for confetti corn.
- Add cream cheese or parmesan cheese to the corn mixture for extra creaminess.
- Use frozen corn or a canned version in the winter months, but fresh is always best and will naturally thicken better than other varieties.
What to Serve With Cream Style Corn
Cream style corn is the perfect side to go with dutch oven pork tenderloin and whole roasted chicken. It tastes great alongside yellow squash casserole and fall off the bone ribs. I also like to serve it with smoked baked beans, smoked meatloaf and sweet pickled onions.
Try it at Thanksgiving with your dutch oven turkey breast or crock pot turkey. Serve it any night of the week with country style steak and red skin mashed potatoes. It's especially good with dutch oven chicken and rice.
Granny Mac always planted a huge garden and served greasy cut-short beans, garden tomatoes and roasted potatoes with homemade cream style corn. Gigantic cat head biscuits or cornbread rounded out the meal.
Recipe FAQs
This creamed corn recipe doesn't include any flour (or gluten), so it is definitely gluten-free. The cream style corn in a can that you buy at the grocery store might add gluten to the ingredients, so check labels carefully.
The old fashioned way of making this recipe includes creaming half of the corn, either with a knife (which is how they did it in the old days), or with a blender. The pureed corn contains has a high starch content which thickens the dish without the need for flour or cornstarch. You can also leave out the cream for a dairy free option.
Silver queen corn is a southern favorite, but you can also use whatever is fresh and in season at the farmer's market or grocery store. I like to use a mix of yellow and white, which is called bicolor.
Traditional creamed corn doesn't add any thickeners like flour or cornstarch and is generally made in a skillet with simple ingredients. Corn pudding contains eggs and usually flour or cornstarch to make it set up like a pudding.
Absolutely! Cream style corn tastes amazing when added to your favorite cornbread recipe! It makes the cornbread really moist and delicious...almost like a slice of cake.
More Southern Sides
Planning a barbecue or holiday event? Add these popular southern sides to your menu!
Recipe Card
Fresh Cream Style Corn
*See notes in blog post for detailed tips, photos and instructions.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Cook the bacon in a skillet and drain on paper towels. Let cool, then chop into small pieces.6 strips of bacon
- Reserve 1 tablespoon of bacon grease in the skillet.1 Tablespoon bacon grease
- Shuck 4 cobs of corn and cut the corn off the cob into a large bowl with a sharp knife. Yields about 4 cups.4 cobs of fresh corn
- Place 2 cups of the corn into a blender and pulse several times to break it up. Pour pulsed corn back into the bowl with the other corn kernels.
- In a skillet, melt butter with the bacon grease over medium-low heat. Sauté onion in skillet for 2 minutes.1 Tablespoon butter, 1 small onion
- Add all of the corn from the bowl to the skillet.
- Add heavy cream and stir over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until cream starts to thicken the corn (along with the juice).1 cup heavy cream
- Add garlic salt and pepper. Mix well.½ teaspoon garlic salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- Sprinkle cooked bacon pieces on top of the corn in the skillet.6 strips of bacon
- Serve hot from the skillet.
Notes
- Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. To reheat, simply place in the microwave in 30 second intervals until heated throughout. Or, warm on the stovetop in a saucepan over medium-low heat.
- To freeze, place leftovers in an airtight container and store in the freezer for up to 3 months. Sometimes when adding cream and butter to a recipe, it will separate after freezing. If this happens, try adding more milk and stirring vigorously over the heat.
- View the Google Web Story for Skillet Creamed Corn!
Nutrition
Nutrition info is an auto generated estimate.
Tried this Recipe and Loved It? ❤️ Please scroll down and leave a *STAR* review!
Pinning, Pinning, Pinning!!! Creamed/fried Corn alllways reminds me of my Grandmother who passed away in 2019 at the age of 93, and is terribly missed. I also just started Following you on Pinterest! Be Blessed Debi!
Awesome! Our grandmothers really knew how to cook didn't they? 🙂 Mine loved making creamed corn.
Yum, this creamed corn looks delicious! Pinning
Have a safe week,
Kippi
Thanks Kippi! Hope you enjoy! 🙂
I think this recipe is the same as my sil father's. He made the best silver queen cream corn. I look forward to making it.
Thanks Patricia! My aunt Julia used to make Silver Queen cream corn. Oh, the memories!
Debi,
I’m landlocked in snowy MN, yes on Easter, and would love this recipe...if I had corn on the cob. Though I made this when there was fresh corn available, I’m not a ‘freezer’ stocker of fresh food. My question is, can you use packaged corn-on-the-cob, defrosting and carefully scraping each cob, to end up with a very similar product? If not, do I have to wait for corn to show up in produce section?
Hi Jacque. Great question! I too, am hunkered down like most of us right now and I made this dish for Easter using frozen corn niblets. I added a can of creamed corn to the mix to create something similar to cutting it off the cob. It wasn't the same, but it turned out great and I would make it again. You might be able to scrape the corn off of defrosted cobs, but in my experience, the frozen corn you buy on the cob is usually too soft and would be hard to scrape. Using frozen corn niblets as a substitute is your best bet! Stay safe!
This recipe looks amazing! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
Thanks so much Julie! 🙂
Hi Debi. I'm so glad I found you. Tried this recipe yesterday and my husband and I loved it. We've got 6 adult kids that all come home on my birthday Dec.20th and stay through Christmas. I know they will all love this. Thanks for a wonderful recipe!
Hi Robin! I'm so glad you found me too! I hope you'll come back and visit often! Thanks so much for the kind words. 🙂
Sunday dinner at MawMaw Brown’s......I can smell the veggies❤️
Aw, Deb , this looks wonderful.. your description took me back to my grandmother and her country suppers. Love the simple recipes like this. Love it all! You are an amazing cook and an amazing person.
You're so sweet, Melanie. I feel the same way about you!
I love this corn!! I have to say that my mama (your Granny Mac) would make it just the way your recipe tells us. It is so creamy and so yummy and it goes with those greasy cut short beans perfectly. Mama use to plant her corn seeds and her greasy cut short bean seeds together in her garden and as the corn grew so did the beans ... right up the corn stalk higher and higher!! It's only right that the beans and corn go together in the garden as well as on the table!! Thank you, Debi, for your beautiful blog and weekly newsletter!! I love reading and seeing all your pictures ... it's just like I was curled up in a chair reading my favorite book!!
Wow, Judi! You've taken me right back to Granny's garden again. Those were truly the best of times. Love you!