flavacol -- "better living through chemistry"
Food and Cooking
All things culinary and cooking related. Share food! Share recipes! Share stuff about food, etc.
Subcommunity of Humanities.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
I was about to scroll by because I have nothing helpful to add, when I saw the last few words „…instead of salt alone“. Salt? You guys are wild! The only thing that belongs on popcorn is sugar (and this way I‘m showing that I‘m German, I guess, while you prove to be from the US, I think. Taste is funny. Enjoy).
You can get popcorn with sweet stuff in the US. My dad used to carmelize sugar in a pan and make cracker jack. And chocolate-covered.
But it's more-frequently a savory snack.
I didn't know that sweet popcorn was a bigger deal in Germany, interesting.
Chocolate-covered? I'm in! Never even thought about that, very cool. I wonder if a cheesy popcorn would be possible as well.
Yeah, if you can buy popcorn somewhere (at the movies, in rollercoaster parks etc.), if it does not say otherwise, it is always sweet. Some booths have both salty and sweet, but not so often.
Oh, my friend, there's this stuff called Chicago Mix that is half cheesy popcorn (just a cheesy powder) and half carmel popcorn. It's a rather tasty blend of salty and sweet.
Sugar is really the thing to add to popcorn over there? That's wild. Here in Norway we're all about the salt and butter also.
Well, there are the few of us over here who like to enjoy salted popcorn. But I guess we are a minority…
Not from US! I'm from Brazil and sugary popcorn is very common here, I don't particularly like it though.
Sugar on microwave popcorn is super good. Tastes really close to kettle corn.
I use Lawry's seasoning salt (recipes are easily found online), Montreal chicken spice, taco seasoning, or seasoning mixes that duplicate potato chip flavours. My personal favourites of those are salt and vinegar, all dressed, and cheddar cheese. Or mix some liquid smoke with some salt and let it dry, and then use that for a smoky bacon/hickory sticks flavour (I have also used bacon salt back when I could find it cheaper). I make all my popcorn in a pot with some oil, so any powder sticks pretty well with not much effort.
Furikake and arare. The furikake for flavor and the arare for some nice variety of texture. You can find it as Hurricane popcorn all over Hawaii and I think Amazon as well at this point.
I have heard people tell of using the seasoning packets that come with ramen noodles.
I'm a purest. I generally just use butter and salt, but sometimes sprinkle on that fake-ish grated parmesan & romano cheese that you shake out of a canister.
Garlic powder and the cheap parmesan cheese in the shaker. So good!
I second this. I put garlic powder or flakes on basically everything. Garlic salt works well for this too
I pop my own on the stove, and recently found that ghee is a great oil for that giving a light buttery flavor. I sprinkle on a bit of salt and King Arthur “Better Cheddar “. So delicious!
Was hoping to see someone post this lol. Love it.
I haven't seen that vid in ages, didn't expect it here.
Somehow i had never seen this video before. Honestly? beats Food Network. Now im off to Amazon to buy a Wok and a Coffee grinder. I need to get bomb at making Pepcorn.
I could eat seven bowls of that!
Pepcorn is actually and unironically very good.
Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning packets. Just sprinkle some on. Be sure it’s the dry powder!
I came here to say the same thing. Best popcorn flavor I have ever tried. Simply fantastic.
I'm a fan of nutritional yeast and salt
Agreed, that's the good stuff
I grind the yeast flakes and salt in my mortar & pestle to get a fine powder that sticks much more easily
Old Bay on popcorn is amazing, I don't make it any other way anymore.
Our favourite here is garlic-infused olive oil with nutritional yeast.
It's addictive as hell. Once you get into nutritional yeast, you want to put it on everything.
I've never heard of that, I'll definitely look into trying it. Thanks!
go on amazon and buy 1kg of flavacol and eat cinema popcorn every night
I put olive oil on the popcorn first, make sure it's nice and coated and then sprinkle on a mix I previously stirred together in a little bowl:
1/2 teaspoon Chicken Bouillon powder
shake in as much of the following as I want:
Italian Seasoning (usually more of this than the others)
Cinnamon (couple shakes)
Taco Seasoning (or any other kind of premade seasoning mix - the Chili flavor packet from Top Ramen is good) about a teaspoon, maybe
And finish with a lot of nutritional yeast.
Stir really well. I use the end of a wooden spoon kind of like a pestle in the bowl to break up the nutritional yeast flakes.
I'll pop a cup of popcorn at a time and put on maybe 1/3 to half a cup of seasoning. I made it last night for dinner. It takes about a minute to do the seasoning mix.
I like Old Bay. But really, any seasoning blend works pretty good. If you have a spice grinder, you might consider grinding it finer so it distributes better.
I have a WhirleyPop so making kettle corn is pretty easy, since you stir the whole time.
I love my Whirly Pop
I spray them with olive oil (from a spray can) and then grind salt over them. I prepare them in a self made bag in the microwave. Very easy and delicious.
Tajin or ranch powder work pretty well too
Ranch powder is a clever idea. Probably much cheaper than the popcorn flavoring mixes they sell. ETA: And Taijin sounds a lot simpler than squeezing out solids from spicy oil.
Chilli crisp goes hard on popcorn! Lao gan ma is a good brand, though homemade is far superior - I like to caramelise my onions before crisping them up, and I also like to use a variety of chillis (including some relatively hot ones)!
Chili lime flavor made with True Citrus lime powder + regular chili powder
Bonus: grind in a mortar & pestle to get a much finer powder that sticks to the popcorn better
My two favorites are chili powder + sugar and curry powder.
Greek seasoning or Zatarans Blackened Seasoning are good bets, more spice than salt
I top my popcorn with Lawry's garlic salt. Tastes great on actual corn too.
Cheddar cheese powder. The neon orange stuff that stains your fingers.
Some dashes of hot sauce can be nice. Doesn’t usually make it too soggy as long as you’re not to wild in the streets with it.
Popcorn is super flexible, if there’s a flavor you like there’s a good chance you’ll like it on popcorn… just have to watch out for texture. You want to add a little moisture but not make it wet, beyond that… you are the artist and the popcorn is your palette 🎨
Carla Music's popcorn
Extra virgin olive oil, for seasoning
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Nutritional yeast
Aleppo pepper (I sub for gochugaru)
MSG
Granulated garlic
carla music gets food, i miss her face on ba. i need to buy her book
I eat popcorn every night and I throw literally anything on it. I do it different each night! Are you in the US? You can buy many seasoning blends and they’re all good. McCormick makes ones that are meant for grilling food but they’re good on popcorn, like their Montreal Steak, Brazilian Steal, Montreal Chicken, etc. If you have access to Trader Joe’s they have an Umami blend that is good, their onion salt blend is good on popcorn. Smoked paprika, Garam masala, anything. Nutritional yeast. Go wild!
- Garlic Salt, onion power, and parsley flakes.
- Cajun seasoning
- Cinnamon roll blend - https://thegingeredwhisk.com/cinnamon-roll-spice-mix/