Stop Accidentally Sabotaging Your Corn Nugget Batter. What You're Doing Wrong And How To Fix It

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Southern food is pretty big on corn, whether it's eaten straight off the cob, in corn bread, succotash, or seafood boils. And fried corn is the underrated side you'll find at many Southern tables. Another biggie in Southern culture are corn nuggets. Corn nuggets are sort of the cousin to corn fritters on one side of the family and hush puppies on the other. While corn fritters are fried relatively flat and round, corn nuggets are shaped more like, well, nuggets, and are usually bite-sized. They are a bit more thick and substantial than fritters, like hush puppies, but significantly smaller than the puppies and don't puff up because they don't use corn flour.

Whether you're regularly making them at home or just dipping a toe, you may be inadvertently sabotaging your corn nugget batter by overmixing it. For some help on how to avoid the issue, we reached out to an expert for a Chowhound exclusive. Hannah Taylor is the author of "Measure with Your Heart: Southern Home Cooking to Feed Your Family and Soul," and she knows her way around a corn nugget. Taylor says, "The trick is to stir just until everything is combined, no streaks of dry flour." She says it's not worth worrying about a few lumps of flour because "they'll work themselves out in the fryer." If you mix the batter too thoroughly, it will become thin and unable to keep its shape when frying. "Think of it like biscuits," she says, "the less fussing, the better the bite."

When it comes to what corn to use, you can go fresh or canned. For the best in canned, Chowhound's ranking of canned corn brands can help give you some perspective, and if you're cutting your kernels directly off of a cooked corn cob, there may be some mistakes you're making with fresh corn.

As for the batter, Hannah Taylor says, "...you want a batter that's thick enough to hold the corn together but still loose enough to drop off a spoon." She compares it to a pancake batter with some extra thickness (and density from the corn, of course). "When you scoop it, it should mound up but still spread a little when it hits the oil — light, golden, and tender inside with that crispy edge we all love."

Taylor also stresses the importance of using binding agents to give you firmer corn nugget batter that won't disperse into thin discs. Eggs or egg whites are an obvious choice. But you can also add some creamed corn. The broken down corn starches give some additional binding power, plus more delicious sweetcorn flavor (with a touch of creaminess). To get perfectly mounded nuggets, you can even think about freezing them for a couple hours, so they'll hold their shape even better as they fry. But, above all else, follow the expert's advice and don't overmix your batter. Take it from Taylor: "If it pours like pancake syrup, it's too thin."