Sweet Corn Soup - gluten-free

Today I want to introduce to you an outstanding sweet corn soup. Sweet corn paired with potatoes and crème fraîche, onions, and spices, all boiled up with chicken soup, and you have a wonderful dinner on a cold fall or winter evening. 

Especially in the cold season, I think a hearty soup is a portion of absolute comfort food. You can use it as an appetizer or entirely as a dinner. On cold days, a warm soup is such a wonderful thing. If you are a soup fan, try this creamy tomato basil soup!

This soup is not too spicy but not too sweet either, creamy but not too thick and not too thin. The incredibly creamy texture comes from the interplay of corn, crème fraîche, and potatoes. 

Such a soup I've always sitting in my freezer. To have it on hand anytime I crave a delicious warm soup. We even incorporated this particular sweet corn soup into our Christmas menu two years ago.

But enough rambling, let's get cooking. Have fun creating an excellent sweet corn soup.

🥘 Ingredients

• 300 g sweet corn kernels (frozen corn kernels, fresh corn, or canned corn)
• 1 medium onion
• 150 g potatoes
• 20 g unsalted butter
• 500 ml vegetable broth, clear chicken broth, or homemade chicken broth
• 125 g crème fraîche or heavy cream
• 1 pinch of kosher salt
• half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 250 ml tap water

NOTE: I am using homemade chicken broth in this recipe and not vegetable broth. The homemade chicken broth adds a distinctive flavor, and I always have it frozen in stock. On the one hand, to use it for cooking or, on the other hand, as a small light dinner when I don't feel like cooking.
If you'd like to stock up on chicken broth, too, keep on reading. 

How to make clear chicken broth

You'll need:

• a 10 L soup pot,
• 1 whole soup chicken,
• a bunch of greens (includes carrots, leeks, celery, parsley),
• 1 teaspoon salt,
• ½ tablespoon lovage,
• 4-5 peppercorns,
• a small tomato,
• the skin of an onion,
• a garlic clove,
• and a vegetable stock cube (or a homemade chicken bouillon powder).

Put all the ingredients in the cooking pot, fill it with water, and let the soup boil

Put all the ingredients in the cooking pot, fill it with water, and let the soup boil for 2-3 hours.

Then strain the soup into another pot and divide it into freezer-safe containers. These should have a capacity of 400-500 ml. As you usually never fill the containers to the brim with soup, this is, in my opinion, precisely the right amount that you can use for an evening soup.

Store them in the freezer after cooling. This way, you'll always have a delicious, hearty chicken soup on hand when you need it.

🍽 Equipment

• 1 Immersion blender
• 1 Cooking pot (big) with lid for cooking the entire soup
• 1 Fine-mesh sieve 
• 1 Cook's knife
• 1 Chopping board
• 1 Mixing bowl (big)
• 1 Universal electric chopper (not mandatory)
• 1 Tablespoon
• 1 Wooden spoon

🔪 Instructions

So, let's start cooking this delicious soup! To start, peel, wash and chop the potatoes and the onion.

If you don't want to weep while cutting the onion, you can use a universal electric chopper (if available) for this purpose. A chopper like this makes cooking life much more comfortable, and I am an absolute fan of it! You save yourself tears, and it is much faster when chopping. If you want to get such a gadget, make sure you buy one that has blades on two levels, which you can also remove as needed.

Now, heat the butter in a cooking pot and sauté the onion until translucent.

Why sauté the onion until translucent? This has several reasons: On the one hand, the onion's aroma develops better, it tastes a little sweeter, and is not so intrusive. Furthermore, it is better digestible by sautéing, which your body will thank you!

After the onions are ready prepared, add the potatoes and infuse them with your homemade chicken broth. Cover the cooking pot with a lid and simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Then, add the frozen kernels and simmer for another 10 minutes. Next, add crème fraîche, salt, pepper, and tap water, and liquidize the soup with an immersion blender.

To make NOT a huge mess while blending, try holding one or two pieces of paper towel over the pot while blending, so not everything is splattered all over your kitchen.

Finally, to make the soup quite subtle, pass it through a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl or cooking pot. Passing through the sieve works best with a regular tablespoon.

After straining, pour the soup back into the pot and bring it once more to a boil. Voilà, your smooth and delicious corn soup can be served!

🥗 Side dishes

What pairs well with sweet corn soup? 

If you want to make your soup for dinner and are still looking for a garnish, I can highly recommend garlic bread. You can make this very easily and quickly at home, using either the oven or the stove. You will need 1-2 slices of bread or baguette of your choice, 2-3 cloves of garlic, olive oil, and a dash of salt. 

In the pan: 

Peel the garlic and press it into a pan with a garlic press. Add olive oil and heat the garlic oil mixture. Then place the baguette or bread slices in the pan and toast them until they get a nice brown color. Move the pieces back and forth while toasting, turning them regularly. Once they reach the desired browning level, take them out of the pan, salt them very lightly and enjoy them along with the cream of corn soup. 

In the oven:

Preheat the oven to 392 °F // 200 °C. Peel the garlic and press it with the garlic press into a small bowl and mix it with some olive oil and a pinch of salt. Coat the bread/baguette slices on both sides with the mixture and toast them in the oven for five minutes. 

🥓 Garnishing

To garnish the sweet corn soup, you can use crispy bacon. You can fry this quickly in a pan with a bit of oil or butter, or make it a little less fatty by using the air fryer. 
Sprinkle your sweet corn soup with pepper flakes or green onions as a lower-fat garnish. 

Another alternative is homemade brown bread croutons. Like garlic bread, the pieces of bread can be toasted in a pan with a bit of fat. Then sprinkle them over the corn soup. Tastes heavenly!

📖 Recipe

⛑️ Food Safety

• Cook to a minimum temperature of 165 °F (74 °C)
• Do not use the same utensils on cooked food, that previously touched raw meat
• Wash hands after touching raw meat
• Don't leave food sitting out at room temperature for extended periods
• Never leave cooking food unattended
• Use oils with high smoking point to avoid harmful compounds
• Always have good ventilation when using a gas stove

For further information, check Safe Food Handling - FDA.