Cream Cheese Corn Casserole with Cornflake Crunch
This baked corn casserole is deliciously creamy with a crunchy cornflake topping, has savory notes from garlic and green onions, and lightly sweetened with a bit of honey. It's balanced with cream cheese and flaky salt. Uses frozen sweet corn, no canned ingredients!
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 8 green onions, white and light green parts finely chopped (keep dark green tops for finishing)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 8 ounces softened cream cheese, cut into 8 chunks (full fat)
- 3/4 cup whole or 2% milk
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons runny honey
- 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
- 12 cracks fresh ground pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (can increase to 1/2 teaspoon if you like a little more spice)
- 1 large egg, thoroughly whisked
- 20 ounces frozen sweet corn (I prefer to use the white and gold variety)
- Topping: 1 1/4 cups finely crushed corn flakes (measured after crushing) + 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix these together.
- Flaky salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Melt butter in a medium size saucepan over medium low heat. Add onions and garlic, stirring to coat with butter. Add 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, and cook for 4 to 5 minutes until softened.
- Add cream cheese and stir to help the cream cheese start to melt, for about two minutes. Then whisk in milk, cornstarch, honey, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, pepper, red pepper flakes. Turn heat up to medium, stirring to combine and continue melting the cream cheese, whisking until smooth. Bring ingredients to a soft simmer (not a boil) for about 2 to 3 minutes, until sauce is smooth and a bit thickened.
- Add frozen corn to sauce and remove from heat. Stir to coat corn. Then stir in egg. Put mixture into a greased 7x10 inch baking pan (or baking pan of similar size). Top with buttered cornflakes.
- Bake for 25 minutes, then broil for 2 to 3 minutes to crisp up the cornflakes. Let sit 5 to 10 minutes before eating (so it can set a bit). Top with flaky salt and minced green onion tops.
- *You can make the corn mixture a full day ahead, remove from fridge and top with the cornflakes right before baking.
