Food and Cooking

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).

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

Edit: I have this stuff

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)!

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

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 🎨

https://youtu.be/3fG8rNHUspU

My two favorites are chili powder + sugar and curry powder.

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!

Tajin or ranch powder work pretty well too

• Garlic Salt, onion power, and parsley flakes.
• Cajun seasoning
• Cinnamon roll blend - https://thegingeredwhisk.com/cinnamon-roll-spice-mix/

I always like to mix in some butter and sriracha

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.

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.

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.

Grated Parmesan cheese

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

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

Pickled Jalapenos are delicious on popcorn

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.

Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning packets. Just sprinkle some on. Be sure it’s the dry powder!

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.

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.

flavacol -- "better living through chemistry"

I just use Pink Himalayan Sea Salt, and then I melt some butter into Orville Reddenbachers Popping and Topping Oil (https://www.walmart.com/ip/Orville-Redenbacher-s-Popping-Topping-Buttery-Popcorn-Oil-and-Seasoning-16-oz/10312412). I also pop the popcorn in it. That makes dang good popcorn imho.

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 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.

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