Can You Freeze Baby Corn?

A sweeter and more tender version of corn on the cob, baby corn is delicious and adds variety to your plate. This is a veggie that’s versatile.

It can be eaten raw as a snack, chopped into salads or cooked as a lovely side dish. But, the question is, can you freeze baby corn?

How To Freeze Baby Corn

There is some debate about whether or not you need to blanch baby corn before freezing, so we will go over both methods in this article.

If you want to be safe, then blanching is your best option as there is a chance that if you freeze it raw, the vegetables will go soft when you thaw them out.

How to Freeze Blanched Baby Corn

1. Prepare
   Prepare your baby corn as you would if you were going to cook and eat it. You can chop, slice or leave the corn whole, whichever you prefer.
2. Blanch
   Put a saucepan of water onto the cooker and bring it up to a boil. While your water is coming to a boil, prepare a bowl of ice water. You need to place this next to the cooker.
   
   When the water is boiling, put the baby corn in and let it boil for a couple of minutes. When the time is up, you need to immediately take the baby corn out of the boiling water and plunge it into the ice water to stop the cooking process.
3. Dry
   When the baby corn has cooled, take it out of the ice water and let it dry.
4. Bag Up Put the baby corn into a freezer bag.
5. Freeze
   Label the bag with the date and contents and put it in the freezer to freeze.

If you want to ensure that the corn doesn’t stick together in the freezer, then you can lay it out on a baking sheet and transfer it into a freezer bag once it has frozen completely.

How to Freeze Raw Baby Corn

If you’re really pushed for time so don’t want to blanch your baby corn, then this is the only option you have, but we would recommend flash-freezing when not blanching:

1. Prepare
   Prep your corn by cutting and cleaning as you normally would if you were preparing it for cooking.
2. Flash Freeze
   Grab a baking sheet and lay out the corn on it so that none of it is touching. Put the baking sheet into the freezer and freeze for a couple of hours.
3. Bag Up
   Once the corn is frozen, then you can transfer it into a freezer bag.
4. Final Freeze
   Label the bag with the date and contents and freeze again.

3 Tips for Freezing Baby Corn

Now you know how to freeze it, we’ve got our 3 top tips which we strongly recommend following when freezing baby corn to have the best results:

Blanch Beforehand
It may be time-consuming. It may even seem like a waste of time. But blanching will benefit you in the future when eating frozen baby corn. Blanching will lock in flavour, colour and nutrients. 

Flash Freeze
We would strongly recommend flash-freezing any baby corn to avoid it clumping together in the freezer. 

Don’t Bother Defrosting
If cooking baby corn over a high heat, such as in stir fry, you don’t need to defrost it. All you need to do is cook it for an extra minute or two to allow it time to thaw before it begins cooking.  

How Long Can You Freeze Baby Corn?

Sweetcorn is one of those vegetables that are perfect for freezing. It keeps for a long time, up to twelve months, in the freezer, and you should be able to extend the life of baby corn just the same.

As with any food, it is best to use it as soon as possible, but you should be fine for up to a year in the freezer.

You Can Freeze Baby Corn for Around 1 FULL Year

How Do You Defrost Baby Corn?

To defrost your baby corn, all you need to do is pop it into the fridge in a bowl and leave it overnight.

By the next day, your baby corn will be thawed out and ready to use. You can speed this up by popping it into the microwave on a defrost setting for a few seconds.

Make sure it has defrosted all the way through if you use this method.

One of the great things about baby corn is that you often don’t need to defrost it at all. If you are throwing it into a stir fry or soup, you can add it while still frozen. You can even boil the baby corn from frozen if you are short on time.

You need to adjust your cooking times to reflect this.

Can You Refreeze Baby Corn?

Refreezing your baby corn could result in a vegetable that is soft and mushy, which isn’t pleasant to eat, so this is why we wouldn’t recommend that you refreeze the baby corn once you have defrosted it.

You should be able to keep thawed out baby corn in the fridge for a day or two after defrosting, so you have plenty of time to use it up.

Does Baby Corn Freeze Well?

Baby corn, just like most sweetcorn, does freeze well, but it does depend on the method you choose. It is likely to freeze a little better if you have blanched it before freezing as this stops the enzymes in the corn from spoiling, and it will keep for longer.

Related FAQs

If you’ve still got questions about freezing baby corn or baby corn in general, then these may help: