Although I’d been planning on working a normal day at the farm yesterday, at the last minute I got the day off for the holiday.
Honestly, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. A Monday without harvesting sunflower shoots and cherry tomatoes? A Monday spent doing something other than shoveling 400 pounds of soil for planting microgreens?
Eventually the reality of a day off set in, and my husband and I decided to make a Labor Day dinner. One of the vegan side dishes we whipped up was so easy and delicious that I needed to share it: Grilled Corn with Chipotle Coconut Butter.
Here’s the recipe:
- 4 ears of sweet corn, shucked
- 1-2 tablespoons of raw, unrefined coconut butter (such as Artisana brand, which includes coconut flesh in addition to coconut oil – yum) or extra virgin coconut oil (such as Nutiva)
- 2 teaspoons of ground chipotle pepper (Penzeys makes a particularly good one), or to taste
- Sea salt
Heat a charcoal or gas grill to medium-high heat and put the rack about four inches from the heat source. Grill the corn, turning occasionally, for 10-20 minutes, or until some of the kernels char a bit.
Remove the corn from the grill and smear with coconut butter. Sprinkle with ground chipotle and sea salt. Serve hot.
If you don’t feel like grilling, you can also boil the corn in a large pot of water until crisp-tender (about 2 minutes) or roast it for 10-20 minutes in a 500 degree F oven. Then proceed to add coconut butter, chipotle, and salt.
Image courtesy roboppy of via a Creative Commons license.
chipotle – what a great addition to coconut butter/oil for corn on the cob!! I will definitely be trying that next time I get corn… we’ve been enjoying our corn lately with pesto made with fresh basil and garlic from the garden, and ground walnuts for texture.
In retrospect I think that this recipe would have been even more amazing with a tablespoon of chopped fresh cilantro… but I didn’t have any on hand at the time!
The next time I use coconut butter on grilled corn, I think I might try sprinkling it with some sweet curry powder instead of ground chipotle… I bet that would be good too!