My Dad’s a Corn Farmer, Here’s His Secret to the Best Corn You’ve Ever Tasted

Summer produce is something I look forward to all year long. As soon as the warm weather strikes, I’m busting out the recipes that use fresh zucchini, tomatoes, strawberries, and cucumbers. However, as much as I love my grandma’s zucchini pie or a BLT, I will choose corn on the cob over other summer produce any day of the week.

That’s likely because my dad grew up on a farm, growing corn, potatoes, and other fresh veggies, so our summer menu almost always includes corn on the cob. Because a Fink family function isn’t complete without sweet, buttery corn on the cob, we take our cooking methods very seriously. 

The Only Way My Corn Farmer Dad Makes Corn on the Cob

According to my dad, there is only one way to cook corn: boiled. That’s definitely the most common method—though, I do enjoy it charred on the grill, too—but it’s not just the boiling that’s important. It’s what you boil the corn in. 

To make the most flavorful corn you’ve ever tasted, you’ll boil your corn on the cob in a mixture of water, milk, and salted butter.

Similarly to those people who add sugar to their water for sweeter corn, adding milk and butter gives the corn an even better, more powerful flavor. While your corn cooks in the butter, milk, and water mixture, the savory, salty, buttery flavor seeps into the sweet corn as the milk tenderizes the kernels for an extra juicy bite. It produces the most ideal corn eating experience; you'll want some corn tools to really enjoy it.

How To Make My Dad's Corn on the Cob

Of course, like so many of my family dishes, there’s no real recipe to follow for my dad’s corn on the cob.

We recently made the side with eight ears of corn and no measuring cups came out, but here’s the general method. Fill a stock pot halfway with water, then add enough milk to turn the water cloudy—I’d guess about half a cup—and a generous knob of butter—for eight ears, we used about 1/4 cup. 

It’s not a perfect science, but once you start playing around with it, you’ll find your desired ratio.

When my dad was growing up, his family cooked their corn on the cob in a copper kettle pot over an open flame. Obviously, we don’t do that anymore, but we do have another secret technique. Instead of letting the butter-milk-water mixture boil, then adding the cobs, we start with everything in the covered pot. Once it reaches a rolling boil, we cook the corn for about 20 minutes until the kernels are tender.

Does boiling the corn, milk, butter, and water together make a difference other than omitting the second step of adding the corn later? I’m not too sure, but my dad swears by it.

Once you try this two-ingredient upgrade, there’s no going back—and you will be begging for corn season to come quickly every year, too.