Last night I made corn chowder. And like most of my soup making endeavors, I had a rough concept in mind and then ran through a couple of quick recipes online only to see that I had several missing ingredients. I also wanted to add salmon to my chowder but every salmon recipe I saw wanted a thin chowder broth…and I was more vibing with a New England style chowder.

So make it up, I did.

Delicious? Definitely. And my biggest win was finally realizing I can use the corn cobs to flavor my stock and thicken it too.

So here’s your tip while the corn is still with us: save your corn cobs in the freezer and use them to flavor your chowders, soups and stocks. The corn flavor comes through nicely and the natural corn starches actually do thicken up the liquid quite nicely.