This easy, cheesy, sweet and savory grilled corn recipe will up your grilling game this summer

Serves: 4-6 Prep: 10 Cook: 15

This cheesy grilled corn recipe is the lovechild of Mexican elote and Korean cheesy corn that nobody asked for but everyone will love. Grilled until smoky, slathered in sweet and spicy gochujang crema, and topped with nutty, crunchy sesame and fresh cilantro, this quick and easy recipe deserves a place at your next backyard barbeque.

What is Elote?

Elote, meaning “corn cob” in Spanish, is a ubiquitous Mexican street food of grilled corn on the cob brushed with crema or mayo, then topped with spices and sprinkled with cheese. It’s a handheld summertime favorite that’s usually served on a stick, which, in my experience, does absolutely zero to keep your hands, face, and shirt clean. But don’t worry, it’s worth it.

what is korean cheesy corn?

Korean cheesy corn is a popular drinking snack and accompaniment for Korean BBQ. It’s essentially corn (off the cob), mayo, mozzarella, and sugar, all mixed together and baked until it’s molten, gooey, and delicious. Like so many Korean dishes, this one rides the delectable line between sweet and savory. Starting to see why this long distance relationship between the two iconic snacks might have staying power?

Grilling the corn

The corn itself is key here, so don’t even think about making this recipe out of season. Corn is one of the most underrated summer veggies in my opinion, and in late summer it’s at its best, each kernel plump and bursting with flavor. White, yellow, or bicolor corn will do just fine for this recipe, so long as it’s ripe and sweet. Look for corn with fresh looking green husks, both because it’s likely to be fresher, and because we’ll be using the husks as handles (this yassifies the final look of the dish, too).

Peel the husks back without removing them entirely (it’s OK to remove a few of the outer ones if your corn is particularly… husky), and secure them with butcher’s twine. If your husks are on the drier side, soak them in water for 10 minutes before grilling. Remove the silk from the cobs, then brush the corn lightly with oil and season with salt. Place them on the grill over medium-high heat and cook, turning occasionally, until cooked through and charred in places, 12-15 minutes.

While the corn is grilling, combine 1/2 cup Mexican crema (or creme fraiche) with 1/4 cup gochujang. Allow the corn to cool slightly, then brush with gochujang crema. Sprinkle with crumbled cotija, toasted sesame seeds, and cilantro, and serve right away (with plenty of napkins).

gochujang grilled corn recipe

ingredients

4-6 ears of corn, with husks and stalks attached
1/2 cup Mexican crema (or creme fraiche)
1/4 cup gochujang
1/2 cup cotija cheese, crumbled
2 TBSP toasted sesame seeds
1 small bunch cilantro, removed from stems and roughly chopped

instructions

Preheat a grill to medium-high (a grill pan over medium heat will work, too)
Peel husks back from corn, being sure to leave them attached. Secure husks with twine. Remove corn silk. If husks are dry, soak in water for 10 minutes.
Brush corn lightly with oil and season with salt. Grill, turning occasionally, until cooked through and charred in places, 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool slightly
While corn is grilling, combine 1/2 cup Mexican crema with 1/4 cup gochujang in a small bowl.
Brush grilled corn with gochujang crema, then sprinkle with crumbled cotija, toasted sesame seeds, and roughly chopped cilantro.

Memoir

When I was a child, my feet were dirty more often than not. I spent countless hours outdoors in the steamy delta heat, digging my toes into the fertile black dirt of my mother’s vegetable garden, exploring the small imaginary worlds that unfolded between the tomato vines or beneath the satellite faces of the sunflowers. The garden was bordered and divided into sections by ancient wooden railroad ties that had been on the old rail line that cut through the farm, impossibly heavy and storied with ruts and grooves and scars of use.

In the far back corner of the garden was my favorite section, where the giant okra plants grew like weeds. Distant cousins of the cotton that was the farm’s primary crop, they were less flashy than the tall stalks of corn with their silken tops, less eagerly anticipated than the strawberries that hung heavy from their bushes like dazzling ambrosial jewels. But the okra grew every summer, reliably, prolifically.

If you spend enough time with okra plants, you can begin to appreciate their beauty, their intentionality. Okra loves fives. Their broad leaves unfurl into five decisive points, symmetrical and deliberate. In the crooks of the prickly branches that produce these leaves, the plants turn out beautiful five-petaled flowers. The delicate, cream-colored petals fan out from a deep burgundy center, brilliant as a drop of red wine diffusing outward on a white silk tablecloth. These flowers eventually give way to the long velveteen fruit that found its way to our dinner table most summer nights. The pods are five-sided and verdant, tapering to a fine point, for which they are sometimes affectionately called “lady fingers.”

Okra was one of my favorite vegetables growing up. In the childhood canon of Gross Vegetables, okra ranks near the top, and so I prided myself on my defiant love of it. We would eat them roasted, breaded and fried, sauteed with butter, pickled, or dried, and I loved them every way. I relished in their texture, the all-too-vilified viscosity, the tiny, bursting seeds, and even the tough tops, often discarded, but delicious if cooked for long enough. I would carry a bucket out to the garden, swatting at mosquitoes, working to the thrumming soundtrack of cicadas, and would daily pull off more fuzzy pods than we could possibly consume. We ate what we could, and the rest would be sold by my mother at the Pine Bluff farmer’s market, alongside freckled pastel eggs and fresh cut flowers.

When I moved to New York City to attend culinary school, okra was notably absent from the curriculum, as well as from the menus of the city’s restaurants. Classmates and chefs turned their noses up at the unwanted vegetable, and the okra that was available sporadically in grocery stores was tough, fibrous, and pockmarked with sickly spots. I heard Gordon Ramsay refer to okra as “exotic” on one of his programs. To me okra was anything but exotic. It was ubiquitous and synonymous with hazy summer days, delicious, necessary, and beloved. For the first time, instead of being proud that I was one of the few second graders that liked okra, I was saddened to be seemingly one of the only adults that liked it as well. Now when I am back home in Arkansas, I have a new, deeper appreciation for the plant I’ve always loved. I cherish the opportunity to pick and prepare okra, good okra, and to feed it to my family who loves it so much, like a precious, quiet secret meant only for us.