Seasoning suggestions for popcorn?

Linnce@beehaw.org to Food and Cooking@beehaw.org – 51 points –

I eat popcorn fairly often and I was wondering if I can improve on the taste with minimal effort. Do you guys know any good mix I could use instead of salt alone?

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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).

Not from US! I'm from Brazil and sugary popcorn is very common here, I don't particularly like it though.

Hah, I guessed wrong then. To be honest, I only tried salty popcorn about 20 years ago, so maybe I should give it another chance. The idea to use bbq herbs or other stuff sounds cool, actually.

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…

In the movies they sell popcorn, everywhere. And 99% it's sweet, in some rare cases they have both. But never, ever it's only salty. Butter sounds nice, actually. I might buy that when I see it one day 🤔

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 on microwave popcorn is super good. Tastes really close to kettle corn.

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

This is exactly what I came to suggest! A good friend of mine turned me onto it and changed my life.

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.

Old Bay on popcorn is amazing, I don't make it any other way anymore.

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!

https://youtu.be/3fG8rNHUspU

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 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'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

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.

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!

Buffalo sauce flavored popcorn powder is pretty good if you can find it.

Edit: I have this stuff

I have that and while it tastes good, some of it ends up airborne and I end up coughing or sneezing like crazy while eating it. Maybe I'm putting on too much?

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.

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 🎨

Greek seasoning or Zatarans Blackened Seasoning are good bets, more spice than salt

go on amazon and buy 1kg of flavacol and eat cinema popcorn every night

This is the way to go. Just recently got some and it's perfect. Don't follow the box amounts though because it'll be too salty (imo), use about a tsp per cup of kernals

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.

If you're willing to add some calories, oil. I got an oil sprayer. I fill it half with chili oil, half with olive oil; not too hot, but gives it a kick. Sprayed on, it doesn't put nearly as much in as being drizzled on. It helps make powdery stuff adhere to the popcorn, too.

I have a salt shaker of Flavacol, which is the "salt" part of what goes into movie theater popcorn.

Movie theaters use (or used, dunno if this has changed) palm oil. This can congeal at room temperature, so may need to be heated.

Powdered butter or powdered various sorts of cheese can be kept in the fridge and can just be sprinkled on.

Cinnamon and sugar can be sprinkled on.

Il second oil as a topping but when I'm feeling extra fancy,y favorite is white truffle oil!

Actually, for popping they mostly use coconut oil. And some places use stuff that gives the popcorn a weird coconut flavor. The stuff that they put on at the end might be /probably is palm oil based though.

Argh, yes, you are right, thanks. Brain fart on my part. It's coconut oil that does the room temperature congealing thing.

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

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.

Cheddar cheese powder. The neon orange stuff that stains your fingers.

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.

I got a pack of popcorn flavorings a while back and upon looking at the ingredients list, realized that I was just buying greatly-marked-up versions of things that I could get for far less in bulk, like powdered butter, powdered cheese, etc.

I top my popcorn with Lawry's garlic salt. Tastes great on actual corn too.

I always like to mix in some butter and sriracha

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)!

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!

To get the movie theatre experience you can use oil and butter-salt (the yellow powder they use). Try peanut oil for cooking in a pot, then butter-salt, and top with drizzle of real melted butter. Obviously not a healthy choice but it’s great.

The movie theaters use a product called flavacol. You can buy it online is you want “authentic” movie theater popcorn.

This might be the only food that is sweeter outside of the US, well, besides kettle corn.

When I eat it enough to get tired of butter and salt, I spritz on evoo or tamari/soy sauce. For spice blends, I really like the ones from Penzey’s, especially Sunny Spain, or something else that amounts to lemon pepper.

With an spice grinder it becomes a lot easier:

  1. Salt, msg, chili and citric acid
  2. Salt, dried out parmiggiano reggiano and black truffle
  3. Salt and msg
  4. Salt and nutritional yeast for that "fake cheesy" flavor

I'm not a big popcorn guy, but have a garlic/salt/pepper mix that I put on almost everything I can. I bet it'd be good on popcorn.

You could probably go with garlic salt though for something similar, if you don't like pepper. Maybe some parmesian, since that's salty too.

Consider olive oil instead of butter just in general. We just do olive oil and salt but love some of the other ideas here.

My goto is butter plus Aromat (a flavored msg based seasoning)