What spices go with sweetcorn
Quick answer
Chilli powder, Smoked paprika, Cumin — in roughly that order of how well established each combination is.
Each is explained below, with the cuisines it belongs to and the point at which it stops working.
Why sweetcorn behaves as it does
Sweetcorn is the sweetest thing most people eat as a savoury vegetable, and the successful traditions all answer that with heat, acid, salt and fat rather than with warm aromatics. Mexican elote is the clearest statement of it — chilli, lime, salt and a fatty dairy — and the chilli-and-lime treatment recurs across South and Southeast Asia independently. Grilling adds a second variable, because charring produces bitterness that gives the sugar something to work against. Sweet spices make it a dessert, which is a legitimate choice and rarely the intended one.
Classic
Long-established in at least one cuisine — the combinations you can rely on.
Chilli powder
ClassicElote is chilli, lime, salt and a fatty dairy on grilled corn, and it is the clearest statement of the only rule sweetcorn imposes: it is the sweetest thing most people eat as a savoury vegetable, and heat and acid are what keep it savoury. The same combination appears independently across South and Southeast Asia.
How: On elote, with lime and cheese; Dusted over grilled cobs
Good
Smoked paprika
GoodGrilling corn produces char, and char is bitterness that gives the sugar something to work against. Smoked paprika reinforces that from the spice side without adding heat, which makes it the option for anyone who wants the elote effect without the chilli.
How: On grilled corn with butter
Cumin
GoodEarthy against sweet, and the pairing that carries corn into a savoury dish rather than leaving it a side. It runs through Mexican and Southwestern cooking wherever corn meets beans.
How: In a corn and bean salad; In esquites
Cuts and forms
On the cob, Kernels, Grilled, Creamed. These do not all take the same spicing — the notes above flag where the difference matters.