Mexican Street Corn Salad

Elote, Without the Mess.

We love a messy summer BBQ as much as the next person—watermelon juice dripping down our SPF-streaked arms, grill smoke billowing into the air, chlorine in our hair, and a bottomless cooler full of ice-cold cans—but sometimes you just want to wear something nice and not immediately regret it. This Mexican street corn salad recipe (or esquites in Spanish) takes all of the flavors and textures that make elotes delicious—fresh sweet corn, lime juice, cotija cheese, and a chipotle crema made with mayo—and turns them into a beautiful salad. The only thing missing is the need for a million wet wipes, and we’re betting you’re OK with that.

Summer Doldrums Are No Match For This Easy, Grilled Mexican Corn Salad.

A bright, sunny summer corn salad is just about the best thing there is. When you can’t handle even the sight of another bowl of potato salad, sweet-savory cold corn salad is here to perk you back up! We love it because:

• Our Mexico-inspired street corn salad is a delicious way to use up any leftover corn, which we always seem to have lurking around our fridge in late summer.
• This Mexican corn salad packs a ton of flavor into one bowl, but uses just a few ingredients—grilled corn is the star of this eight-ingredient show.
• AND if you really love this corn esquites recipe, keep it around all year! You can make it in winter—when you can just barely remember what August felt like—using frozen corn and it’ll still taste incredibly good. Creamy, spicy, cheery bites of summer are what get us through winter—how about you?

How To Make Corn Salad

Colorful and zesty has never been simpler than this easy corn salad recipe! Here’s how to make this Mexican street corn salad:

1. Cook six ears of corn. You can grill it—for extra smokiness—or boil the corn, or even use frozen.
2. Whip up a batch of chipotle mayo dressing. Creamy, easy and so good, there is no better cold corn salad dressing on earth.
3. Slice, dice and toss! Chop up the veg—radishes, cilantro and green onions—that will take this from a bowlful of sweet corn with mayo (not that there’s anything wrong with that) to the true culinary joy that is fresh corn salad.
4. Toss the vegetables and corn with your chipotle dressing and a little more chipotle powder, a squeeze of lime juice and plenty of crumbly cotija cheese. Chill (if you’d like to) and serve.

Tools You’ll Need:

• You really need a good sharp knife for this corn salad recipe, especially if you’ll be using boiled or grilled corn on the cob and then cutting the sweet corn kernels from the cob. That’s an easy job, but a sharp knife is key.
• A big bowl for serving.
• A grill! Or a big pot for boiling corn, or a skillet if you’re using frozen corn.
• If you grill the corn, you’ll probably want some grilling tongs.
• Salad servers are nice, too.
• Last but not least, we love our citrus juicer.

Other Summery, Mexican Dishes We Love:

When it comes to the flavors we crave when the sun comes out, it always comes back to the beautiful cuisine of Mexico. Pair these dishes with this Mexican corn salad recipe, and call it a cocktail party:

• Easy Pico De Gallo
• Perfect Guacamole
• Spicy Rhubarb Mint Margaritas

There’s Nothing Corny About How Much We Love this Salad

And we hope you’re as crazy about it as we are! If you make it and love it, let us know. Snap a photo of your esquites (Mexican corn salad) and maybe even a video of the beautiful people you feed it to. Tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper. Happy eating!