A Cream of Corn Soup for the books! It’s slightly sweet, creamy and full of corn flavor. Plus, each serving gets topped with addictively crispy shallots and garlic for the ultimate combination of creamy, savory and crispy.
As a born and raised Iowan, you know I love a good sweet corn recipe. Beside the fact that I’m corn-fed, I also love how quickly and easily this soup comes together. It’s part of my annual Soup Simple Series which means it has a short ingredient list, quick cook time, and loads of flavor.
Plus, it’s the kind of soup that can totally be adapted to your preferences. If you like the crisp bites of corn and creamy chunks of potato—don’t purée the soup. And if you love a cream soups where every bite is silky smooth, purée the whole damn thing! I fall somewhere in the middle, so I give instructions for puréeing just half of the soup.
And finally, the cowbell of it all is the super crispy garlic and shallots that get spooned over top. They add savoriness, loads of flavor, and of course crispy texture.
Ingredients Needed
The full recipe, with ingredient amounts and instructions can be found in the recipe card at the bottom of this article.
- Pantry: kosher salt, pepper and olive oil.
- Sweet corn, I recommend using fresh ears of corn (the cobs are important for creating a full-flavored creamy soup), frozen corn kernels just don’t taste as good or work as well as fresh corn. Even better if it’s summer corn—use any leftover corn to make Blackened Corn!
- Shallots, one of the shallots will be used for the crispy topping while two shallots will be used to make the soup.
- Garlic
- Red pepper flakes add heat. If you prefer things on the milder side, you can use freshly ground black pepper.
- Fresh ginger adds a lovely depth of flavor. Find it next to the onions and shallots or in the refrigerated produce area next to the bulk snap peas and peppers.
- Fresh turmeric, you can use ground turmeric if you’d prefer not to buy fresh. You can also skip it altogether.
- Yukon gold potatoes add more golden goodness to the soup! Yukon gold potatoes have a deliciously silky texture and add creamy body to the soup.
- Low-sodium vegetable broth, low-sodium chicken broth can also be used if you don’t need this to be vegan/vegetarian.
- Canned coconut milk, I recommend full-fat coconut milk, though light will also work.
- Fresh lime juice added at the end adds a nice tangy zip and balances out the savory, fatty flavors.
- Cilantro is used for serving, it’s optional but does add a ton of fresh flavor at the end.
How to Make the Soup
Cut the kernels from the corn cobs and reserve the cobs.
Then make the crispy garlic and shallot topping by frying them in a bit of oil with red pepper flakes. Keep an eye on them—pour them out into a bowl when they are golden brown!
Use some of that infused oil (from cooking the garlic and shallots) to cook the shallots, ginger and turmeric. These three ingredients lay a robust foundation of flavor.
Add in the potatoes and cook briefly.
Add the corn cobs and broth to the pot and bring it to a boil then add in the corn kernels and coconut milk.
Simmer the soup until the potatoes are tender.
Transfer the corn cobs to a bowl and let cool. While the corn cobs cool, transfer half of the soup to a blender and blend until smooth.
Add the puréed soup back to the pot.
Using the back of a knife, scrape down the length of the corn cobs to “milk” the cobs and release any remaining starch, liquid and corn solids. This adds tons of flavor!! Discard the cobs then add the scraped liquid and solids to the soup.
Season the soup with lime juice and salt to taste. Top each serving with cilantro and the crispy shallots and garlic.
FAQs
You can swap the coconut milk for half-and-half, whole milk, or your favorite unflavored and unsweetened nut milk. Coconut milk is delicious here because of how creamy it is so I recommend using a milk that’s high in fat or similarly creamy. You’ll need 1 ¾ to 2 cups of whatever milk you choose to use. I also recommend not adding dairy milk to the soup until after you’ve simmered and puréed it—if you add it earlier it will likely curdle.
You can absolutely swap ground turmeric for fresh turmeric. You can also skip it altogether. If you opt to use ground turmeric, add it to the pot when you add the potatoes, it only needs to cook for a minute.
It is gluten-free. The starch from the corn and the potatoes have enough thickening power that a roux is not needed.
Storage Tip
This sweet corn soup will last up to 1 week stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. The soup thickens as it chills, so you may need to thin it out a bit with additional vegetable broth or water.
Serving Ideas
Because this soup doesn’t feature any protein, you’ll likely want to serve this as a main dish with a side of some kind of protein. I love quick seared chicken breast or Cajun. Shrimp. Feel free to toss a can of chickpeas or some shredded chicken into the soup.
More Veggie Soup Recipes to Try
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Hungarian Mushroom Soup
Healthy Dinner
Curried Carrot Soup
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30-Minute Tomato Florentine Soup
Cream of Corn Soup Recipe
Description
Ingredients
- 4 ears sweet corn
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 3 large shallots, divided
- 4 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 1 (2-inch) piece ginger, peeled and chopped (2 tablespoons)
- 1 (1-inch) piece turmeric, peeled and chopped (or 1 ½ teaspoons ground dried turmeric)
- Kosher salt
- 2 small yukon gold potatoes, about ¾ pound, peeled and cut into ½-inch cubes
- 3 cups vegetable broth
- 1 (15-ounce) can full-fat coconut milk or 2 cups whole milk, warmed
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (from ½ lime)
- Cilantro, for serving
Instructions
- Cut kernels from corn cobs; set kernels aside and reserve cobs.
- Thinly slice 1 shallot; set aside. Roughly chop remaining 2 shallots.
- Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or pot over medium until simmering. Add sliced shallot and garlic; sauté until starting to toast and become golden brown, 2–5 minutes (shallots will naturally separate in oil). Add red-pepper flakes and sauté to toast, about 10 seconds. Transfer shallots, garlic, and oil to a small bowl.*
- Measure out 1 tablespoon shallot-garlic oil and add back to pot over medium heat. Add chopped shallot, ginger and turmeric and cook, stirring occasionally, until fragrant, 2 minutes; season with salt.
- Add potatoes and cook 1 minute.
- Add reserved corn cobs and broth; bring soup to a boil then stir in corn kernels and coconut milk; bring back to a simmer and cook until potatoes are just tender, 8–10 minutes.
- Using tongs, transfer cobs to a plate; let cool.
- Meanwhile, transfer half of soup to a blender and blend until smooth; transfer back to pot.*
- Scrape back of a knife down length of cooled corn cobs to “milk” cobs; add scraped liquid and solids to soup and discard cobs. Stir in lime juice and season with salt to taste.
- Top each serving with crispy shallots, garlic, infused oil and fresh cilantro.
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Notes
Nutrition
If you are using frozen corn, about how many cups do you think are equivalent to the four ears?
Great question Lynne, 4 ears of corn will likely yield about 3 cups corn kernels. However, since you won’t be adding the corn cobs to the soup (which adds a bit of starch) I would increase the cup amount to 3 1/2 cups. Let me know how it goes with frozen corn!
Rich, sweet, and delicious! The only thing I changed was to skip the turmeric (optional in the recipe) and added bacon on top (definitely not vegan, but awesome). I’m looking forward to leftovers tomorrow. Thanks for another great recipe!