Mexican-Style Grilled Corn
This Mexican grilled corn is flavored with butter, cotija cheese, chipotle powder and lime juice, for a flavorful summer side dish.
I’ve been obsessed with grilled corn this summer. This one is loosely based on Mexican-style corn, although it doesn’t have mayonnaise like traditional Mexican corn only because I don’t like mayonnaise on my corn (but feel free to add in mayonnaise if you like it!). It has all of the other flavors, though, like butter, cotija cheese, chipotle powder and lime juice so it’s a Mexican grilled corn recipe that is very similar.
I know we’ll be making this grilled corn all summer because it’s so easy. I love BBQs and I know this corn will fit right in with some of my other favorite BBQ dishes like my Avocado Potato Salad.
I love that you only need a few simple ingredients to make this grilled corn. Before we got our grill, I would make roasted corn in the oven, like my Parmesan Chipotle Corn on the Cob, but during the summer it’s so nice to cook outside and not heat up the house with a hot oven.
Ingredients
- Corn on the cob
- Unsalted butter
- Chipotle powder
- Grated cotija cheese
- Lime juice
- Chopped cilantro
How to Grill Corn
The first thing you want to do is remove some of the outer husk from the corn. You still want the corn partially covered by the husk because it will help keep the corn moist as it cooks and will keep the kernels from burning.
Preheat your grill and, once it’s hot, place the corn on the grates. Cook the corn for about 15 minutes or until it’s tender. Remove the remaining husk from the corn.
Once the corn is cooked you can dress it up!
- I like the brush the grilled corn with butter. This gives it lots of flavor and helps the other toppings stick to the corn.
- Sprinkle some chipotle powder over the butter followed by a sprinkling of the cotija cheese.
- Squeeze some fresh lime juice over the top and garnish the corn with some fresh chopped cilantro.
Even if you don’t have a grill, you can make this Mexican-style corn in the oven and I’ve included the instructions in the recipe card. The process is the same, but the corn will take longer to cook in the oven than it does on the grill.
If you’re looking for more ideas, be sure to check out my Memorial Day Recipes round-up that has lots of summer recipe ideas.
More Summer Recipes
Mexican-Style Grilled Corn
Ingredients
- 4 ears of corn, partially unhusked (remove the first few layers but leave about half of them on)
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 tsp chipotle powder
- 1/4 cup grated cotija cheese
- juice of 1 lime
- chopped cilantro, optional, for garnish
Instructions
- Grill corn until tender, about 15 minutes. Once the corn is cooked remove the charred husks and discard.
- Brush each ear of corn with 1/2 tbsp butter. Sprinkle each with about 1/2 tsp chipotle powder, 1 tbsp of cotija cheese (or more if you desire) and a squeeze of lime juice. Garnish with cilantro if using.
Mexican ‘street style’ corn has the mayo and seasonings, which I’ll have one time a year, just like an egg nog latte and chocolate covered cherries. Â I love the flavor of fresh roasted corn and sometimes just grill it in the husk (after removing the silk) and eat half without any seasoning. Â For the rest of it, I use Tajin as a sprinkle-we got a gigantic 14 oz bottle at the Chula Vista Costco last year. Good the installation went well. Â You can use a grill all year in San Diego…we’ll heat one set of burners and place items on cookie sheets on the ‘cold’ side and bake or warm dishes with the radiant heat when we need more oven space.
i’m really not a mayo person which is why I left it out and used butter instead. But I really like the idea of roasting corn with all these seasonings and cheese. So flavorful. I recently bought a bulk pack of Tajin on Amazon. It tastes amazing on grilled avocadoes, but I’ll have to try it on corn next time.
Great summer recipe! Â I like using Tajin on corn (mayo too!)
I don’t like huitlacoche. It tastes like dirt.
Lol, I love how blunt and open you are. I’ve had huitlacoche before a few times but it was always mixed with so many other ingredients that I didn’t really get a taste of it by itself. I recommend using tajin with avocados. We like to grill ours just barely so it’s heated but not yet bitter and then sprinkle tajin. I need to find more uses for it though because I bought an 8-pack off of Amazon. I’ll try it work the corn next.
“Mexican style” corn without huitlacoche ?
the idea is that it’s inspired by mexican street corn (which is why I say in the post “This one is loosely based on Mexican-style corn”). though truthfully, none of the recipes i came across used huitlacoche