Pickled Corn

Quick pickled sweet summer corn is made with six ingredients and is about to become your new favorite condiment.

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One of my all-time favorite things is pickled vegetables.  And I’m not even picky about it.  Almost any pickled vegetable will do.  I just love that salty, tangy, briny flavor.

Here’s a cute (maybe?) little story for you – when I was a kid, my mom told me that I would get nosebleeds if I ate too many pickles, because otherwise I would literally eat them until they were all gone.

Given that, I didn’t really have any other pickled veggies until I was in my 20’s, when I had giardiniera for the fist time, and like Aladdin showing Jasmine a whole new world, my world was forever changed. 

Okay, that’s dramatic, but it’s true.

Other Recipes You'll Love

• Hummus
• Tomatillo and Poblano Salsa
• Esquites (Mexican Street Corn)

Recipe Highlights

• Quick and easy to make
• Keeps for a long time
• Can be modified to suit your tastes
• Short ingredient list
• Crazy delicious

Ingredients Needed

• Fresh corn (on the cob)
• jalapeno pepper (or a different, hotter pepper if that’s your thing)
• bay leaf
• cup plain white vinegar
• sugar
• cup water
• kosher salt

A little about pickling:

This recipe is technically a quick pickle, which just means that we’re boiling together the water, vinegar and flavorings, and then covering the vegetable in that pickling liquid and waiting awhile.

A quick pickle is basically a marinade.  It will keep in the fridge for several weeks.  Canned pickling is a longer and more complicated process that involves among other things a stronger brine, a water bath, and the need to make sure your jars are properly cleaned and de-germed for long term food storage.  It’s honestly not a process that I’ve ever been particularly interested in, but who knows – that might change one day.

Then you have the SUPER quick pickle, which is one of my favorite methods for making pickled red onions (basically a miracle food) which doesn’t even require boiling the pickling liquid.  The benefit of this is that the veggies are ready to eat much sooner.  The cons are that the shelf life is much shorter.

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What can you do with pickled corn?

• Use it as a topping for tacos.
• Use it as a topping for salads.
• Mix it with fresh tomatoes and eat it with a spoon.
• Top avocado toast with it.
• Put it in a pasta salad.

Substitutions and Alterations

• The recipe calls for 1 jalapeno, halved.  This honestly doesn’t add much in the way of heat to the final recipe, so feel free to use a serrano or bird’s eye chili if you like things spicy.  If you’re a spice wimp (like me) you can either only use half of the pepper or leave it out entirely.
• In the off season, you can use canned corn.  Just drain the corn and measure out 1 ½ cups.
• You can cut down on the amount of sugar in the recipe – take it from ½ cup to ⅓ cup.  You need some sugar to offset the vinegar and you want to highlight the sweetness of the corn, but you can definitely lower the amount of sugar.
• If you don’t have bay leaves, you can use other seasonings.  Thyme and rosemary are both fairly hearty and will hold up to the pickling.
• You could add some whole peppercorns, or a halved shallot to give it a different flavor profile.
• Feel free to add a few tablespoons of a flavored vinegar to change the flavors up as well.

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