A light Summer Corn Chowder is made by cooking the bare corn kernels in the broth to intensify the flavor and filling the soup out with lots of colorful vegetables, red peppers, zucchini, and summer squash.
The key to this soup is to cook the bare corn cobs in the stock. This adds a ton of flavor. It makes it taste like corn soup, not just soup that happens to have corn in it. It’s light and works well in the summer since it's relatively quick to put together and includes a lot of fresh summer vegetables like zucchini and summer squash.
If I was making it in the winter, I’d be more tempted to put some of the soup and potatoes in a blender to make it creamier, but for the summer I like having a thinner broth with lots of diced vegetables. So perhaps you could call it summer corn soup rather than chowder, but I associate corn with chowder more so than soup.
Summer Corn Chowder
Ingredients
- 3 strips of bacon, thinly sliced
- ½ yellow onion, diced
- 6 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 6 ears corn
- 2 medium red potatoes, diced
- 1 red bell pepper, diced
- 1 zucchini, diced
- 1 summer squash, diced
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Cook the bacon on medium heat in a large pot or Dutch Oven until crispy. Remove the bacon and set aside.
- Add the onion and sauté for 5 minutes until soft. Add the chicken stock, milk, and heavy cream.
- Cut the corn kernels off the cob and set aside. Add the now bare cobs to the pot. Add the potatoes and cook at a low simmer for 20 minutes.
- Remove the corn cobs and discard. Add the corn, red bell pepper, zucchini, and summer squash. Simmer for 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.
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