I'M A VEGAN FOOD EDITOR & I TRIED 'CORN BUTTER' TO SEE IF IT'S WORTH IT

I’m forever guilty of pinning, screenshotting, and writing notes down for exciting and occasionally weird recipes I’m inspired by…and then never ever making them. Instead, I typically turn to one-pan meals that I can make in 30 minutes or less, leaving the loftier projects for another day that never comes. Every so often, though, I come across something that hits all the boxes—simple, cheap, and fast—and I’ve got to try it. Enter: this Corn Butter recipe from Food52.

I love molecular gastronomy, food hacks, and, as my bio says, "foods masquerading as other foods," so a butter made from only corn is right up my alley. That said, there are SO many incredible vegan butters available on the market, so I wanted to see how a homemade version would compare.

The recipe, which was created by Whitney Wright (a former Per Se line cook and senior editor of the now-shuttered Gilt Taste), sounded simple enough. Cut the kernels off about eight ears of corn, blend them up, strain out the solids, then heat that corn “milk” until it thickens into a butter-like consistency.

Initially, I tried this recipe using a can of corn I already had in my cabinet for proof of concept. She says you don’t need any seasoning, but I added salt because corn without salt feels wrong. At first, I didn’t strain the canned corn after blending, and ended up with something thick and almost-neon yellow. Though it didn’t particularly resemble butter, it was tasty enough that I wanted to source some fresh corn to try again.

I’ll be honest: after trying this with fresh corn, I nearly threw in the towel. Maybe if I’d been working with gorgeous, peak-season corn that was freshly shucked, it would have worked better. I really wanted to turn plastic-wrapped supermarket corn into something luscious, rich, and, well, butter yellow, but instead got something a bit claggy and off-puttingly beige. It didn’t taste much like corn and ultimately wasn’t worth the effort.

I let this project sit for a few days until I was motivated to try one more time with canned corn. This time, I put in the effort to blend it fully, strain it properly, and babysit it on the stove. There’s nothing like the feeling that a recipe is already a failure to engender creativity, so I ended up ditching the one-ingredient aspect altogether. Instead, I split the final product into a few batches, adding plant-based butter to one and miso to another.

And hot dang, we’ve got it! All had their virtues: the "just corn" version was creamy with a subtle corn flavor. The "butter" version had all a rich, buttery flavor, but with a light summery corn depth. However, the "miso" version was the winner. If the "just corn" had a light corn flavor, the miso version tasted like salted, buttered corn on the cob. I used it to sauté some zucchini to great effect—it does behave a little differently than regular butter in that it doesn’t really melt, but it did result in some browned corn solid bits that were very delicious.

Although this might not be an everyday recipe, I will definitely make this again, perhaps for a dinner party or potluck where I want to inject some extra oomph into an otherwise simple dish. I can also really see myself returning to this in the dead of winter when I’m dreaming of corn, peaches, and summer days.

2025-06-08T13:08:52Z