Recipes Using Corn: 15 Delicious Meals Made with Sweetcorn
I’ve been making recipes using corn for years now & a few of them have gone properly viral so I thought it was time to pull them all together in one place. Frozen sweetcorn is one of my absolute favourite budget ingredients and I feel like it usually doesn’t get nearly enough attention. It costs around £1 per big bag, it lasts forever in the freezer, and it works in SO much more than just a stir-fry. There are 15 meals with corn here, all from the blog, all budget-friendly.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love These Corn Dishes
These dishes with corn cover everything from quick no-cook lunches to proper dinners. Most of them meal prep really well and keep in the fridge for a few days. Most of these recipes using corn are under £2 a portion and can be made using frozen sweetcorn. You can roast it, stir it through a sauce, toss it through a salad cold. Sweetcorn is way more flexible than people give it credit for and these corn recipe ideas show exactly what I mean.
Corn Salads and Lunch Ideas
Roasting frozen sweetcorn before it goes into a salad makes a huge difference as it goes golden at the edges & picks up a bit of smokiness. These are the corn dishes I go back to most for meal prep lunches.
Mexican Chicken Salad with Bacon
This is one of my absolute go-tos and it’s easy to see why. The key is roasting the sweetcorn with bacon first. Everything going into the bowl already has that slightly charred, caramelised flavour before the feta and lime even get involved. It makes several portions and keeps in the fridge for four days, so it’s one of the best recipes using corn if you’re sorting lunches for the week.
Creamy Sweetcorn Pasta Salad with Chorizo
This came from me using an entire bag of frozen sweetcorn in a pasta salad & it turned out so unbelievably good. It’s creamy, a little smoky from the chorizo, about £1 a serving and ready in 35 minutes. It’s a great corn dish to batch make on a Sunday and have waiting in the fridge all week.
Spicy Buffalo Chorizo & Sweetcorn Salad
This came from me using an entire bag of frozen sweetcorn in a pasta salad & it turned out so unbelievably good. It’s creamy, a little smoky from the chorizo, about £1 a serving and ready in 35 minutes. It’s a great corn dish to batch make on a Sunday and have waiting in the fridge all week.
Cowboy Caviar (Viral Tiktok Recipe)
This went viral on TikTok, and it deserved to. It’s ready in ten minutes with no cooking whatsoever & sweetcorn is one of the main players alongside black beans, peppers and a Cajun vinegar dressing. Serve it with tortilla chips or spoon it into meal prep bowls, both work perfectly.
Orzo Pasta Salad (in 10 minutes)
The sweetcorn goes into the boiling water with the orzo for the last five minutes so there’s no extra step at all. I love the pan-fried halloumi on top & the red wine vinegar dressing. This is such a really solid lunch to have sitting in the fridge, honestly.
Corn Recipes for Dinner
These are the corn meals to reach for when you want something filling at the end of the day. A few of these recipes using corn are in my regular rotation & I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Creamy Corn Pasta with Bacon and Leek
This is one of the most loved corn recipes I’ve shared and it uses a whole 900g bag of frozen sweetcorn. You roast it first so it goes golden and slightly smoky, then fold it through a creme fraiche sauce with bacon and leeks. It’s part of my 5 Lunches for £5 series so the cost per portion is surprisingly low. If you haven’t made it yet, start here.
Creamy Shrimp and Corn Pasta (Orzo)
Sweetcorn in a creamy orzo sauce adds a natural sweetness that honestly takes it to the next level. The paprika prawns on top make it look & taste amazing too! This one is a great corn meal to make if you want something that feels a bit more special without much extra effort.
Cheesy Tuna Pasta Bake Recipe
Sweetcorn goes into the bake with the tuna, cream cheese sauce and rigatoni, then gets a crispy cheddar top in the oven. Are you kidding me?! SO good! This dinner recipe with corn uses stuff most people already have in the cupboard & the whole family will eat it without complaint.
Creamy Smoked Haddock Recipe
We have poached smoked haddock in a cream & bacon sauce with sweetcorn stirred through, ready in just 15 minutes. The sweetcorn picks up all that smokiness from the fish and the bacon and makes the sauce taste like it took way longer than it did. Serve with rice or some greens.
Southwest Ground Turkey and Rice Skillet (30 minutes!)
Taco-spiced turkey mince with sweetcorn, black beans, aubergine and brown rice, finished with cream cheese, melted cheddar and a crunch of tortilla chips on top. If you’ve got thirty minutes & one pan, make this right now. It’s such a good dinner with corn for busy nights.
Corn as the Star
Sometimes the sweetcorn doesn’t need to share the spotlight. These are the recipes using corn where it’s the whole point of the dish.
Easy Mexican Street Corn Off the Cob (15 Minute Elote Recipe)
Elote in a bowl: buttery, cheesy & smoky, and so much easier to eat than the actual cob. It works as a side dish but it’s good enough to have on its own with some flatbread. This is pretty much the recipe that made me start treating frozen sweetcorn seriously.
Halloumi Tacos (Vegetarian Soft Tacos)
The sweetcorn here goes into a creamy, elote-inspired filling with mayo, coriander, lime and garlic granules, then gets loaded into the taco with the halloumi. It’s vegetarian, it uses frozen sweetcorn & it’s one of the most popular recipes on the blog. So so good.
Easy Skillet Roasted Corn {Great for Any Time of Year!}
Frozen corn in a hot skillet, into the oven for 20 minutes, and what comes out is golden and caramelised and tastes NOTHING like you’d expect from a frozen bag. Use it as a side dish or use it as the starting point for any of the recipes above.
Tips for Cooking with Frozen Sweetcorn
The most useful thing I’ve learned about frozen sweetcorn is that roasting it is where everything changes. A lot of people boil it or microwave it and then wonder why it tastes a bit flat. Boiling pulls flavour out rather than building it. Spread the corn on a big tray, don’t pile it up, and get it into a hot oven at around 200°C for 20 minutes. It comes out golden, charred at the edges and so much more flavourful.
Pan size matters too when you’re making recipes using corn! If you’re roasting in a skillet and the corn is stacked up, it steams instead of roasts and you lose that texture. I’ve found that a large flat baking tray gives you the best result.
For recipes where the sweetcorn goes in cold, frozen sweetcorn thawed under the tap works perfectly. You don’t need to cook it at all, just run it under cold water for a couple of minutes & it’s ready to go.
FAQ
The most popular recipes using corn on this blog are the Creamy Corn Pasta, the Mexican Chicken Salad and the Sweetcorn and Chorizo Pasta Salad. All three roast the sweetcorn first, which makes a huge difference to the final flavour.
Yes, frozen sweetcorn works in every dish on this list. It’s cheaper than fresh, available all year round and roasts really well. A few recipes like the Cowboy Caviar also work with tinned sweetcorn if that’s what you have in the cupboard.
The Mexican Chicken Salad, Sweetcorn and Chorizo Pasta Salad, Spicy Buffalo Chorizo Sweetcorn Salad, Creamy Corn Pasta, Dorito Taco Salad and Southwest Ground Turkey and Rice Skillet all make several portions and keep well in the fridge for up to four days.
All of them. For the roasted dishes the sweetcorn goes straight from the bag onto a hot tray. For cold dishes like the pasta salad or cowboy caviar, just thaw it under a cold tap for a couple of minutes first.
For most things, yes. Fresh corn on the cob has a slight edge when you’re eating it raw or very simply cooked, but for anything going into a hot pan, a sauce, a pasta bake or a salad, frozen sweetcorn is just as good and a lot cheaper.
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