How to Make Corn Stock – The Broke Girl Blog

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Hey Guys!

In my quest to share how to make more out of nothing, I’m continuing the “almost free” stock series with this post- how to make corn stock. Everything in this stock is literally a kitchen scrap that was either carefully saved by myself or my mom and frozen until I had a day where I could make corn stock. Believe it or not, I have 12 cups of stock still from this batch that I made in December and I have enough fixings for another big batch of stock. Go me, right?

I love to make stock in my giant crock pot (#lazy, just keeping it real), but you could easily do this in a stock pot, too! I’ve linked some suggestions in the Shop the Post section below, from a fancier crock pot that’s programmable to a more affordable option that is manual, some awesome stock pots and the right kind of metal strainer to not have any bits in your stock. Nothing over $50, because I don’t like recommending needlessly expensive kitchen stuff- the affordable will do you just fine.

You’ll want to start with about 6-8 corn cores (depending on the size of your pot, mine is 8 quart). These were not knawed on corn cobs, but rather corn that was cooked and cut off the cob with a knife during the peak of Taber Corn season. My mum loves to cook fresh, local corn like this during peak season and then freeze the kernels for special occasions like Thanksgiving, Christmas and that Tuesday you don’t feel like eating. Then the cobs get frozen, and she shared a bunch (like 20!) with me. Then, add into the pot your veggie scraps- ends of celery, carrots, onions, asparagus (go lightly on those). As you can see from the photos, they’re added frozen. Lastly, I add aromatics- so crushed garlic cloves, red chili flakes, peppercorns, bay leaves, and fresh or dried thyme (depending on what I have). Turn this on high for 3 hours, or low/medium for 6.

Then, you’ll want to either delicately pour (as if) the stock through your strainer into another pot to get your delicious stock separated from your cooked out veggie scraps. To avoid burning myself, I pull out the cobs and anything else that’s big that could either shake the strainer or splatter me and discard them before pouring with the stock through with the smaller items. Once that’s done, you can slap your stock on the stove to reduce to save freezer space, cook with it or freeze it as-is once it’s cooled.

My favorite things to make with corn stock include corn chowder, corn and bacon risotto (so affordable!) and grits. I’m going to be posting some corn stock based recipes soon, because corn is an extremely affordable frozen vegetable (ok, grain) to add a burst of flavor to a cold wintertime meal. Do you have any recipes that you use corn stock for? Let me know!

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