Stop adding cream to your creamed corn. It doesn’t need it and our recipe doesn’t call for it. Corn already possesses everything it needs to be creamy, you just have to know how to help it be its best self. For the creamiest creamed corn with pronounced corn flavor, cream the kernels themselves and save the heavy stuff for semifreddo.

The secret to the creamiest cream-free creamed corn

Sweet corn is not a vegetable. It’s a juicy fruit. A whole bunch of them, actually. Each individual kernel is its own tiny seeded fruit and, like most fruits, the flavor is on the inside. Grating, blending or juicing the kernels releases their flavor by freeing the corn milk—the starchy, sugary liquid trapped inside the seed coats (the “skin” of the corn kernels).

Heating the corn milk above 150℉ will kick those starches into thickening mode—the long, branched molecules are small enough to float around in dissolved form, but their bushy shape causes them to bump into each other and get all tangled up, slowing down the flow of the liquid while giving it a smooth, creamy consistency.

So cream isn’t needed for texture purposes, but it also isn’t needed for flavor. It turns out, you don’t have to add dairy to give your creamed corn the velevety, sweet flavor of cooked cream. According to Harold McGee’s “On Food and Cooking,” in addition to activating its starches, heating corn milk intensifies its aroma by making certain compounds more volatile. One of those compounds is dimethyl sulfide, a molecule that’s largely responsible for the aroma of cooked milk. Plus, we’re not omitting dairy entirely—we’ll be adding butter, a more flavorful, complementary dairy product.

Blend your way to better creamed corn (and pastas)

Releasing the corn milk is easy. When making our Creamed Corn with Scallions, we scrape the milk from the cobs after cutting away the kernels, then blend it with a little water and half of the whole kernels. We simmer the remaining kernels in the blended mixture, along with some butter, which thickens into a creamy, velvety sauce that enhances—rather than obscures—the corn’s grassy-sweet flavor. A handful of sliced scallions brings a vegetal savoriness that balances the corn’s sweetness and the richness of the butter.

Summer pastas also benefit from busted up corn kernels. To make the staff-favorite Campanelle Pasta with Sweet Corn, Tomatoes and Basil we grate the corn right off the cob, collecting the milk in a pie plate. We then boil the spent cobs to make a corn broth we use two ways: Some of it is simmered with grated corn, shallots, chili and a couple of tablespoons of butter to make the sauce; the rest is used to cook the pasta, which flavors the noodles while supercharging the pasta water with starch. That water is then used to thicken the sauce as needed and help it cling to the pasta.

For our Bucatini with Sweet Corn and Scallions, we break out the blender to make a puree of corn, scallion whites (for extra savoriness), a little water and salt and pepper. That base is then combined with butter and the pasta cooking water to make the sauce, along with salty Pecorino cheese and fresh chilies. It’s savory, spicy, sweet and—yes—creamy all at once, without a drop of cream required.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.