Corn Chowder with Bacon (Printable)

Sweet corn and smoky bacon meld with creamy potatoes in this warm, flavorful chowder.

# What You'll Need:

→ Meats

01 - 6 slices bacon, chopped

→ Vegetables

02 - 2 cups sweet corn kernels (fresh, frozen, or canned and drained)
03 - 2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
04 - 1 medium yellow onion, diced
05 - 1 celery stalk, diced
06 - 2 cloves garlic, minced

→ Liquids

07 - 3 cups chicken stock (gluten-free if needed)
08 - 1 cup heavy cream
09 - 1 cup whole milk

→ Spices & Seasonings

10 - 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
11 - 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
12 - Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

→ Garnish

13 - 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives or green onions

# Step-by-step Directions:

01 - In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook the chopped bacon until crispy. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat in the pot.
02 - Add diced onion and celery to the pot. Sauté for 3 to 4 minutes until softened.
03 - Stir in minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant.
04 - Add diced potatoes, corn, smoked paprika, and dried thyme. Mix well to coat evenly with seasonings.
05 - Pour in chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 15 minutes, until potatoes are tender.
06 - Stir in heavy cream and whole milk. Gently simmer for an additional 5 minutes without boiling.
07 - Using an immersion blender, partially purée the soup in the pot to desired consistency. Alternatively, blend 2 cups of soup in a standard blender and return it to the pot.
08 - Stir in half of the cooked bacon. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.
09 - Ladle chowder into bowls and garnish with remaining bacon and chopped chives or green onions.

# Expert Advice:

01 -
  • It's ready in under an hour but tastes like you've been tending a pot all day.
  • The bacon fat does the heavy lifting—no fancy technique needed, just good instincts about fat and flavor.
  • There's built-in flexibility; it forgives substitutions and actually gets better when you use what you have on hand.
02 -
  • Never boil the soup after you add the cream—it will break the emulsion and taste grainy instead of silky, a mistake I made once and never repeated.
  • If you forget the smoked paprika, the soup becomes plain corn soup; that spice is doing far more work than you'd think, so don't skip it or save it for the end.
  • The partial blending is where most people go wrong—too much blending and it tastes like pureed baby food, not enough and it's just broth with chunks, so aim for the middle ground.
03 -
  • Render the bacon low and slow instead of blasting it over high heat—this keeps the fat clean and prevents any burnt flavor from creeping into your soup.
  • Use good stock, the kind you'd actually taste on its own; mediocre stock makes a mediocre soup no matter how perfect everything else is.
  • Keep the immersion blender moving in circles rather than stabbing straight down—this creates an even puree and prevents you from over-blending one section of the pot.
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