Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers
These Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers make for an easy and fun summer side dish on the grill!
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I often joke that our grill comes out at least 6 nights a week during the summer. I’m not even sure why I bother to cover it up each time since that cover will be coming right back off the next day. And while I love grilling up sausages or a good steak, sometimes you just need a fun side dish for the grill. That’s where these Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers come into play! This recipe is a tasty and easy grilled side dish that relies on 2 of summer’s most plentiful vegetables: fresh corn and zucchini. (Well, technically corn is a grain and not a veggie…but I’m not splitting hairs here!)
Laura and I tried our hand at growing corn once. We grabbed a seed packet from the store, and headed home to plant our garden. I was surprised when I opened that packet and found a handful of corn kernels. That shouldn’t be surprising at all, but I just wasn’t expecting it. Either way, we planted that corn, and we actually got several stalks. Of course, as soon as the ears of corn started to show up, the squirrels made quick work of those stalks. Oh well. Plus, we typically find fresh corn at 5/$1 in the summer months, so I’m not sure it’s worth the garden space to grow our own.
A couple of nights ago, I was teaching Robbie that corn grows on ears. (He loves corn, but he’s used to us buying canned corn in the winter.) In the process, I decided to google corn, and I actually learned a couple of fun tidbits myself. Did you realize that an average ear of corn has 800 kernels? 800! And thanks to the way it grows (maybe related to the Fibonacci Series?), there will always be an even number of rows of kernels.
Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers
Grilled Corn on the Cob SkewersFresh corn is hands-down one of my favorite side dishes for the grill. (This Grilled Mexican Street Corn is one of our go-to summer recipes!) But for these Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers, I took a different path. I sliced the corn cobs into large pieces and then threaded ’em back onto skewers along with some zucchini. After all, it’s that time of the year when zucchini take over the garden. I swear if I forget to check the garden for just one day, I’ll go out and find a zucchini the size of my forearm!
Cutting the cobs of corn for these Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers is a bit of a challenge. I found that pressing the knife partially into the ear and then just using my hands to break the ear was the best approach. (I also found that metal skewers were easier to use than wooden ones. Just be careful when picking those skewers up from the grill…they get hot!) Take those skewers and add in some melted butter, Parmesan cheese and herbs, and you’ve got yourself one heck of a delicious side dish for the grill.
Oh, and one more fun corn fact: corn is used to make fireworks. Seriously. Fireworks require a binder to hold them together, and dextrin is the most common binder used in fireworks. Guess where dextrin comes from? Yup, corn. Now you, too, can impress your friends at the next summer BBQ! Cheers!
Grilled Corn on the Cob Skewers
Ingredients
- 4 ears of corn husks removed
- 2 zucchini
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1 Tbsp lime juice
- 3 Tbsp Parmesan cheese grated
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 4 12” skewers (I recommend metal skewers for this recipe)
- {optional} fresh cilantro minced
Instructions
- Preheat grill to medium-high heat.
- Cut each ear of corn into several 1½-2” medallions.
- Slice zucchini into 1-1½” medallions. Place corn and zucchini in a medium bowl.
- Using a small bowl, whisk together the softened butter, lime juice, Parmesan cheese, salt and chili powder. Transfer butter mixture into bowl with corn and zucchini; toss until well coated.
- Thread corn and zucchini onto skewers. (Note that the last vegetable on each skewer should be the tip of the ear of corn.) Wrap each skewer in foil.
- Grill skewers for 20 minutes, rotating once after 10 minutes. Remove skewers from foil and continue grilling for 8-10 more minutes, rotating often.
- {Optional} Sprinkle fresh cilantro over skewers before serving.
OK yum. I can’t get enough corn or zucchini right now! As someone who tends to be obsessive about things, I like knowing that corn always has an even number of rows. That makes me want to eat it even more–is that weird? Probably. Have a great weekend, David!
Haha! I’m a little bit OCD myself, Kelsie (and Robbie definitely is, too), so it’s fun to know that corn always (always!) has even rows. Pretty interesting stuff! We love tossing corn on the grill in the summer, and this version is a good way to help use up those extra zucchini, too. Hope you had a great weekend, my friend!
This is such a cool idea! My kids are obsessed with corn on the cob and this would be a great way to mix things up and get them to eat some zucchini too! Love the idea of adding parmesan cheese too! And I think we use our grill as often as you in the summer! Too hot to turn on the oven! 🙂
Isn’t corn on the cob just so good, Sherri? And when local corn is so cheap, it’s hard not to pick up like 4 or 18 ears at the store. 🙂 I can’t promise your kids would eat more zucchini (they might just take the skewers apart…haha), but this is definitely a fun way to use corn + zukes together. Cheers for the grill, right? 🙂
I’m curious about why it was easier to break the ears apart? I would assume you could just slice through them.
That’s a great question, Jeff! So I found the corn was really difficult (if not impossible) to break into 2″ pieces. Sure, I could snap the entire ear in half…but after that, I needed the Hulk to help me out. So I ended up scoring the ear with a knife and then breaking it from there. It worked out in the end…but slicing through an ear of corn is harder than you think, too. Try it out sometime. #TrueStory
Great idea! Looks great and I know it would taste great. Now if the government over here will just dismiss the BBQ ban (fear of fires) before our fresh corn disappears we’ll give it a go.
A BBQ ban!? Say what? I mean I get the fear of fires, but a BBQ ban is just wrong…especially in the middle of the summer. We grill out at least 5-6 nights a week this time of the year! I really appreciate you stopping by and commenting. It’s nice to “meet” you, Ron!
I am going to have to count the kernels the next time I have corn on the cob! 800 sounds like a lot.I’m sure you’re right, but I’ll still have to count just to make certain. I love this as a side dish and it’s perfect for summertime grilling.
Hahaha. I just got a mental image of you sitting there counting the kernels of corn on an ear. Have fun with that one, Kathy! And you might want to devise a system so you don’t recount the same kernels. This could turn into a full-blown scientific experiment. Or we can just trust it and make some delicious grilled corn (and maybe play a little cornhole, too). 🙂
You know what, David? I never needed to open a package of corn seeds, but I just realized I would be surprised to see corn kernels too. I don’t know why because that’s a pretty obvious option haha. Anyway, we’ve been enjoying corn this summer a lot. Although we don’t have a grill, I manage to cook cobs in a pan, and it’s prerry delicious. Certainly, it cannot beat your recipe, but still good;)
See? I’m not the only one! I mean it’s obvious that a package of corn seeds would be kernels…but still, it was just unexpected. So I say you and Andrey need to get a grill. You still have time this year, and maybe you could get a late season sale on one. It can be a small one even. They have small tabletop gas grills that run on a funny-looking canister of gas. Or they have small charcoal ones, too. As a food blogger, you owe it to yourself! 🙂
One thing I never tried growing was corn – BTW – were the homegrown ones tastier than store bought ones just like other homegrown produce? Corn sure is one of my fav side dishes too – and what a fun dish you have created here with them! Hoping y’all are enjoying your summer, David!
So I wish I could answer your question about homegrown corn…but we didn’t actually get any. We planted like 3-4 stalks, but the squirrels destroyed the ears of corn before they were ready to be picked. That was our one and only experiment with corn! But zucchini? We have plenty of that!! That stuff grows like wildfire. 🙂