Easily cut corn off a few ears for a fresh corn recipe – or strip corn off dozens of corn ears for freezing or canning.
It’s Healthy Kitchen Hacks day – the day we share our favorite time-saving kitchen tricks and cooking shortcuts to help you make healthy and delicious meals.
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Now…onto today’s featured Healthy Kitchen Hack:
3 Easy Ways to Cut Corn Off the Cob
We were lucky enough to pick dozens of ears of corns from our neighbors garden a few days ago. So I’ve been freezing corn and canning this Corn Relish with Red Peppers.
I’m also trying desperately to grow corn in our weed-infested garden. (My family vacation to Montana this year was great for my mental health – but terrible for the health of my garden. #sigh #maybenextyear) Very best ways to cut corn off the cob - for a few ears or dozens via @TspCurry #HealthyKitchenHacks Click To Tweet
With all this corn on my hands, I’ve been testing out the Smart Ways to Cut Corn Off the Cob:
1. A Baking Sheet Contains the Corny Mess
Place a cutting board inside a baking sheet to prevent flying corn kernels from coating your counter-top with sticky corn juice. Some recipes suggest stripping a corn cob in a bowl, but I’ve found that set-up to be awkward. A baking sheet covers more area and makes clean-up a snap.
Bonus tip: Make sure you don’t forget to use the back of a knife to scrape off the super-sweet corn ‘milk’ after removing the kernels. The corn ‘milk’ is the milky-white liquid that clings to the cobs after the kernels are removed; it adds sweetness, nutrition and especially a natural liquid thickener to any corn dish you’re preparing.
2. A Corn Stripper Makes Quick (and Fun!) Work of Removing Corn Kernels
I researched the best tools for stripping corn kernels at a local kitchen supply store. Options include:
- Kuhn Rikon Corn Stripper (affiliate link) which is probably the safest option.
- Zyliss Corn Stripper (affiliate link) I purchased this and it works great for my 7-year old (without two front teeth!) to strip his own kernels!
3. An Electric Knife is the Quickest Tool to Remove Corn from Lots of Cobs
Not everyone has an electric knife, I realize. But mine has certainly cut hours off tasks like removing corn kernels from dozens of ears of corn. When I freeze corn or make corn relish, my good old electric knife (affiliate link) is the fastest way to produce long uniform strips of kernels.
An electric knife is also fabulous for slicing delicate angel food cakes or warm bread-from-the-oven that would be squished down by the use of a regular serrated knife.
Now that you have all this fresh corn stripped speedily off the cob, please make this Black Bean and Corn Salsa Deanna posted a few years ago. It’s like the second most popular salad on our site and I make it all year long.
What’s your favorite corn recipe? Do you have an old-school electric knife?