As a midwesterner, I look forward to the summer sweet corn bounty every year. As a Vietnamese American, there's no dish I love better to showcase summer corn than chè bắp. It's made with only a few ingredients and it tastes great warm or cold.
Chè is the word for Vietnamese sweet soups. Bắp is corn. So Chè Bắp is just corn sweet soup. It's more similar to a rice pudding than a soup, hence the title of this recipe.
Chè is a popular dessert or snack, and they have a ton of range. Some can be quite complicated to prepare, while others, like this one, come together with very few ingredients. In Vietnam and some places in the U.S., you can find shops that sell several different types of chè at a time. You can even point at different ingredients to mix and match your own cup of chè.
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🌽 Ingredients
You will need:
For the soup
- 4 ears of corn (2 ½ cups or 260g)
- ½ cup (60g) of glutinous rice
- 6 cups water
- 5 tablespoon sugar
For the coconut milk sauce
- 1 14oz (403g) can of unsweetened coconut milk
- 1-2 tablespoon sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ tablespoon corn starch dissolved in 2 tablespoon water
🔪 Instructions
Make the sweet soup
Remove the husk and silk from your corn and wash the cobs thoroughly. Using a knife, cut the kernels off of the corn cob.
Place the leftover corn cobs in a large pot with 6 cups of water and simmer for about an hour or until the corn broth water is fragrant. This will give your soup a stronger corn flavor in the end.
Remove the cobs and add the glutinous rice. Simmer until rice kernels have swelled up and absorbed most of the water. They should still be holding their shape. 15-20 minutes. Add the corn at this point and simmer another 15-20 minutes until the mixture has thickened. Stir occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. Add more water a little bit at a time if the soup becomes too thick.
Add sugar to taste.
Make the coconut milk topping
Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan and add sugar and salt. Stir on medium heat until sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to bubble on the edges of the pot. Don't let the mixture boil.
Dissolve the corn starch in water and pour the slurry into the coconut milk. Continue to simmer until the mixture has thickened. When you run your spoon through the center of the sauce, you should be able to see the bottom of the pot for a second before the mixture pools back into the pot.
💭 Tips and substitutions
Do not add the sugar to the soup until the very end. Adding sugar too soon will harden the glutinous rice and affect the texture of the soup overall.
If you have pandan leaves (usually found frozen at Asian grocery stores) You can tie a leaf into a knot and add it to the corn cobs while you are making the corn stock. It will add a nice fragrance to your soup. Pandan extract is also sold in a lot of stores, but this will turn your soup green.
🍚 Serving suggestions
Serve this soup at room temperature or chilled, with a generous spoonful of coconut milk topping. Some people don't like the coconut topping, and this soup tastes great without it too.
🥡 How to store or make in advance
Store the coconut topping separate from the soup. Both dishes will last about a week in the fridge. This dish cannot be frozen. Freezing will affect the texture of the rice once defrosted.
👪 Serving size
This dish makes 4-5 bowls of chè Bắp It can easily be scaled up or down for a crowd. If you're cooking for a crowd, aim for one corn cob per person/bowl of sweet soup.
📋 Recipe
Vietnamese Sweet Corn Pudding (Chè Bắp)
Ingredients
For the sweet soup
- 4 ears corn 2 ½ cups or 260g
- ½ cup glutinous rice 60g
- 6 cups water
- 5 tablespoon sugar (or more to taste)
For the coconut milk sauce
- 1 14 oz can coconut milk 403g
- 1-2 tbsp sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ tablespoon corn starch dissolved in 2 tablespoon water
Instructions
For the sweet soup
- Remove the husk and silk from your corn and wash the cobs thoroughly. Using a knife, cut the kernels off of the corn cob.
- Place the leftover corn cobs in a large pot with 6 cups of water and simmer for about an hour or until the corn broth water is fragrant.
- Remove the cobs and add the glutinous rice.
- Simmer until rice kernels have swelled up and absorbed most of the water. They should still be holding their shape. This should take 15-20 minutes.
- Add the corn and simmer another 15-20 minutes until the mixture has thickened to a porridge consistency. Stir occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. Add more water a little bit at a time if the soup becomes too thick.
- Add sugar to taste.
For the coconut milk topping
- Pour the coconut milk into a small saucepan and add sugar and salt.
- Heat and stir on medium heat until sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to bubble on the edges of the pot. Don't let the mixture boil.
- Add the corn starch and water slurry into the coconut milk. Continue to simmer until the mixture has thickened. When you run your spoon through the center of the sauce, you should be able to see the bottom of the pot for a second before the mixture pools back into the pot.
Nutrition
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Looks really good. My childhood version is without the sticky rice. This is a great version so I'm now waiting for the corn season. Will definitely make this. Thank you Suzanne; I'm so glad that I found your website.
Thanks for the kind words! I've had the kind without sticky rice as well. I love both, but I gotta say I prefer it with the rice!