A delicious fresh chowder that makes corn a main dish instead of just a side.

Late Summer Means Corn

Growing up in the midwest, you get used to seeing corn everywhere you look. It's a staple for the economy of people in the "Flyover States." I love corn, but I grew up mostly eating corn from a can. Fresh corn was around, but my parents simply didn't have the desire to prepare it. So, "corn on the cob" became a special occasion food for me.

So, when I had a family of my own, I tried to incorporate fresh corn in meals wherever I could. Typically, we grill the corn by wrapping it in foil with butter, salt and pepper. This is delicious and very easy. Corn is so good, though, that I wanted to make it a main dish. How do we do that? Why, this corn chowder is a great way!

Let's Make It!

We cannot just throw corn into water and call it chowder. It takes a lot more! My chowder starts with the Trinity. We've talked about that before here, but in case you forgot, it's onion, celery, and bell pepper. I'm using red bell pepper here, but you can use any color bell pepper that you may have on hand. I'm also swapping out regular yellow onion for the whites of green onions. We're also using bacon. Why? Because bacon goes with anything! So, let's get a quick overview of the recipe.

We're going to start by adding some chopped bacon to a cold pot and turning it on to medium high. This will render the bacon fat and keep the bacon from overcooking. When the bacon is crispy, we'll remove it but leave that delicious bacon fat in the bottom of the pot.

In Goes the Trinity

Now that we've got all of the bacon rendered, we're going to throw our Trinity into the pot while turning the stove down to medium. Salt the veggies here to help them start to sweat and cook them in the bacon fat until the onions are see-thru. Once that's done, we're going to add in the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, or until you can smell it!

From here we're going to add in a couple of tablespoons of butter (mostly for the taste, but it does help make the roux as well.) Once that's nice and melted, we stir in our flour and cook it until you can't smell it anymore. It's time to add the corn! Stir it into the mixture with the flour, make sure you're still seasoning as you go! We'll add in some potatoes, and then we're going to add all of our chicken stock. It's time to simmer and stir!

Thin Soup Becomes Corn Chowder

So, now we've got a thin, runny soup. Chowder is thick. How do we thicken the soup? Two ways. We're going to simmer the soup for at least 30 minutes. Then we're going to take 1 ½ cups of that soup and blend it. If you have an immersion blender (here's the one I use. It's excellent.) then you can skip removing the soup and just blend the soup for roughly 2 minutes or until the soup thickens. Now you've got chowder! To finish this up, we're going to add the bacon back, 2 tablespoons of honey, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, and 1 ½ cups of heavy cream. Heat through to make sure the heavy cream hasn't brought the chowder's temp down too much. Lastly, we'll remove the chowder from the heat, add 2 cups of freshly shredded cheddar cheese. We remove it from the heat to prevent the cheese from becoming oily and grainy.

Wrapping It Up

Now that your chowder is done, you can serve it up with some of the bacon you reserved, scallions, and some more cheddar cheese on top. I also added a drizzle of honey to mine. This goes great with some crackers, or even a nice French bread loaf. We definitely loved this on a nice summer evening, I hope you do too.

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Fresh Corn Chowder

A delicious fresh chowder that makes corn a main dish instead of just a side.

Course Main Course

Cuisine American

Keyword corn chowder, soup

Servings people

Equipment

1 Blender or Immersion Blender See Notes below

Ingredients

6 cups fresh corn removed from the cob
6 slices of bacon chopped
1 bunch green onions whites chopped greens thinly sliced
2 stalks of celery diced
1 bell pepper diced
2 cloves garlic minced or crushed
1 ½ cups Yukon Gold potatoes diced in 1 inch cubes
¼ cup All Purpose Flour
2 tbsp unsalted butter
48 oz chicken stock
12 oz Heavy cream
2 tbsp sour cream
2 tbsp honey
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Start bacon in a cold stock pot or Dutch oven over medium high heat. Cook until crispy.
Remove the bacon from the pot to a paper towel lined plate leaving the rendered fat behind
Add the onions, celery, and bell pepper to the pot and cook until the onions are translucent
Add in garlic and cook until fragrant ~30 seconds
Add in corn and stir into mixture
Add butter to mixture and stir until melted
Stir in flour and cook until you cannot smell the flour anymore
Add in potatoes
Pour in the chicken stock slowly, stirring at the same time to incorporate the ingredients
Bring soup to boil, then reduce to simmer. Simmer for 30 to 45 minutes.
Remove 1 ½ cups of soup and blend in blender*
Return blended mixture to soup and stir. Simmer for another 5 minutes
Stir in honey, sour cream, and heavy cream. Return bacon to the soup. Heat until warmed from the addition of cream
Remove from heat and stir in cheese. Serve immediately.

Notes

*If using an Immersion Blender, do not remove soup. Blend soup until thick.