Easy Corn Pudding Recipe

If you love Southern food, you've come to the right place. We adore eating the homestyle cooking of this region, as there's an undeniable comfort in foods made from scratch. However, in our busy lives, we often don't have time to devote to hours and hours of cooking. So is it possible to enjoy Southern comfort food when using shortcuts? The answer is absolutely yes.

Recipe developer and registered dietitian nutritionist Kristen Carli, brings us this recipe for an easy corn pudding. Carli says, "I happen to be a super-fan of corn. I will eat it any way I can, whether that's elote, cornbread, or simply buttered off the cob. What's nice about this recipe is that it utilizes two varieties of canned corn so you can eat this all year long, not just when corn is in season."

There's nothing wrong with canned foods. We love using them whenever possible for their endless positive qualities, from being shelf-stable and accessible year-round to even being infinitely recyclable. Grab your go-to canned corn brands, and get to work on this satisfying side dish.

To make this easy corn pudding, you can start by gathering your ingredients. For this recipe, you'll need both canned whole kernel corn and canned cream style corn, which each offer their own unique consistencies to the dish. Melted butter, whole milk, and eggs add creaminess and body to the recipe, while cornstarch thickens things up. And with just salt and pepper as seasonings, the sweet flavor of the corn truly shines.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Add all the ingredients to a large bowl.

Using a wooden spoon, stir to break up the egg yolks and combine the ingredients until no lumps remain.

Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the mixture into the dish.

Bake for 1 hour, or until firm and golden brown on top, and serve.

This classic corn pudding is absolutely delicious as-is, but it's easy to tweak for certain dietary considerations, and a few modifications can offer a fun twist.

This recipe is by default gluten-free and vegetarian, but if you want to make a version that's also entirely vegan, all you need are a few ingredient substitutions. Despite the name, canned cream style corn doesn't typically include any cream or dairy (though worth double checking the nutritional info, depending on the brand), so you're good there. Swap out the butter for a vegan margarine or a plant-based butter. Similarly, the whole milk can easily be replaced with a plant-based milk. Cashew milk would be an especially great choice here, as the nuttiness would pair nicely with the sweet corn, and when cooked it reduces into a pudding-texture. As for those eggs, tofu provides structure as well as that custardy consistency. You'll want to replace the eggs with about a cup of pureed silken tofu here. 

Looking for other ways to switch up your corn pudding? You can't go wrong with bacon and/or cheese, and if you want to give it a little kick, try adding a finely chopped de-seeded jalapeño. Any and all can be folded into the batter while combining the rest of the ingredients.

As you'll notice, this recipe calls for two different varieties of corn (three, if you count cornstarch). There's a can of whole kernel sweet corn, as well as two cans of cream style corn. What's the difference between the two?

For starters, canned corn kernels are just that: You open the can, and you see kernels of corn. They're typically packed in a saltwater mixture, which is drained off before the corn is implemented in a variety of recipes. The kernels are left whole, offering you some texture and a a full burst of flavor when you bit into them.

Cream style corn, on the other hand, is a canned alternative to an American favorite, creamed corn. While homemade creamed corn also includes (as the name suggests) cream, you actually won't find any dairy in cream style corn. That creamy texture is instead created by slightly pureeing some of the corn, and thickened with some additional starch. This makes cream style a great option for cooked recipes involving corn, as it acts as a binding agent in fritters, cornbread, and, yes, corn pudding.