I love summer soups, and corn chowder is definitely one of those! I was inspired years ago when I was working and would frequent Panera for my lunch breaks. They make a kick ass corn chowder that would only make an appearance during the summer months and I scoured the internet to find one that would taste just as good and I didn’t have to spend $5 on it every time I wanted some.
Back then I was on a healthy kick, so I came across a cream-less version and it’s pretty damn awesome! Light, crispy and packed full of corn and veggies.
Cream-less Summer Corn Chowder
- 4 ears of corn
- 1 medium sweet onion, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 jalapeno, diced (seeds removed depending on your heat level!)
- 3-4 strips of bacon, diced
- 3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
- 1 (or 2, depending on size) Yukon potato, cleaned, peeled and diced
- 1 teaspoon Salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
In a dutch oven or large pot, cook bacon over medium heat. Fry them up then reserve in a little bowl with paper towel to drain. You could easily make this vegetarian, just omit the bacon! While the bacon is cooking, remove the corn from the cobs. Set aside corn & reserve 2 of the 4 corn cobs.
After the bacon has cooked and been removed, add onions, peppers and jalapenos and sautee for about 5 minutes until they get nice and tender. Add salt and pepper, then raise the heat to medium-high. Add chicken stock, potatoes, corn and the corn cobs to the pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer for 15 minutes and until potatoes cut easily with a fork.
This next step is how we get it to have a “cream-like” consistency minus the cream! Take an immersion blender (or a regular blender if you don’t have and just remove 1/3 of the soup mix, blend it then return to the pot) and blend three-quarters – sporadically around – in the dutch oven pot.
Heat the soup through, dish it out, top with some of that crispy bacon (if you ain’t a veggie-tarian!) and you are ready to serve!
Have a great weekend, hope you are doing somethin’ fun in the sun. I’ll be in the pool due to the redonkulous heat here in Florida. Only thing missing is an alcohol-soaked drannnk! 2 more weeks….2 more weeks….
– Amanda
