Blanching Fresh Corn-on-the-Cob for the Freezer

I wrote this post (and prepared the corn!) the afternoon before Leah was born, but I never got the photos uploaded.  As you can see from the photo, I was quite large with child!

I love corn, so when our preacher's wife called and offered us as much sweet corn as we wanted, I was delighted.  I ended up with about 50 ears or so after giving some away, and while we could put a serious dent in that, I wanted to save some for the winter months when the price of corn is outrageous!

First, I shucked the corn, but failed to take a picture.

Next, using my great big canning pot, I boiled some water and threw in a bunch of ears and allowed them to boil for 11 minutes, as they are large ears.

After boiling, I threw them into a cold water bath to stop the cooking process, and cool off in preparation for freezing.  I didn't have enough ice for all the corn I was doing, so I kept the cold water tap flowing.   You should allow the corn to cool at least as long as you boiled it, and preferably a little longer.

If you prefer corn-on-the-cob, then you would just bag your cobs in Ziploc freezer bags at this point, remove any excess air, and label them with the date, if desired.  However, niblets take up less space, so that is my preferred method of storage.  I used my Bundt pan to cut the corn into by placing the tapered end of the stalk into the hole in the pan.  Since they are big ears, it involved a small amount of jamming to get them to stay.

Using a sharp knife, I cut down the sides of the cob, being careful not to cut too deeply into the cob.  The kernels will retain their cob shape unless you break them up, which is easiest to do once they are bagged.

Now just bag your kernels into whatever size serving you prefer, which for me was 2-cup size servings, into Ziploc freezer bags.  Label, remove any excess air, and freeze.