The Simple Hack For Making Your Own Bagged Microwave Popcorn
If you're a popcorn lover, you probably have a lot of core popcorn memories: at the movie theater in big buttery buckets, over the fire in prepacked aluminum pans, shaking a pan of kernels over the stove, carefully pulling open a bag straight out of the microwave. And as you probably know, homemade popcorn is the best of all. But did you know that you can hack your own homemade bagged microwave popcorn?
TikToker @mmmorgan20 went viral with a video on PopcornTok showing an easy way to do just that. Simply take a brown paper lunch bag, put ¼ to ⅓ cup of popcorn kernels and a tablespoon of butter into the bag, and season (again, right into the bag). Fold the bag closed a few times, and pop it into the microwave for two minutes. Boom. Popcorn.
Not only does this give you full control over what goes on your popcorn, it's also really economical. You can buy a 2-pound sack of popping kernels — yielding just over 13 bags filled with ¼ cup of kernels — for pretty cheap. You can also buy 100 brown paper lunch bags for a steal. Compare prices of these items at your local market to your average store-bought microwave popcorn prices, and you'll see a big difference in cost.
Amp up your homemade microwavable popcorn
Making your own popcorn means you have total control over the flavoring. Do you like lots of butter? No problem. Do you like no salt? No problem. Do you like to get creative with your seasoning? Get after it.
For sweet popcorn with a winter holiday kick, add pie spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and brown sugar. Toss with dried cranberries for cinnamon-spice berry popcorn. Keeping with the winter holiday theme, use eggnog extract and melted marshmallows to make eggnog popcorn balls. Combine with caramel and toss with almonds to make McCormick's caramel almond popcorn for an extra-crunchy, sweet snack. For funfetti-esque popcorn, melt some white chocolate, toss the popcorn in it, and then add a generous amount of rainbow sprinkles.
If you're craving a more savory snack, the sky's the limit. When you add all of your kernels and (optional) butter to the bag, throw in your favorite spice mixes. Everything bagel seasoning, cajun spice mix, Old Bay, Tajín, Italian seasoning, curry powder ... whatever tickles your fancy. For cheesy(ish) vegan popcorn, toss in a teaspoon of nutritional yeast. Change up your popping fat from butter to coconut oil. Get really fancy and make ginger turmeric popcorn with honey and lemon zest. Go wild.
Try different kinds of corn
The coolest thing about making your own bags of microwavable popcorn is how easy it is to experiment with it. Not only can you season a hundred different ways, but you can experiment with different kinds of popcorn. Do popcorn hulls get you down? Try hull-less popcorn. It's a smaller, thinner hull that basically shatters in the popping process, so it's a much more tender experience.
Want really big pieces of popcorn? Mushroom popcorn is so named not because it tastes like mushrooms (it tastes like popcorn), but because of their giant, round, button mushroom shape. Want a buttery flavor but without the actual butter? There's an old Pennsylvania Dutch heirloom varietal called Pennsylvania Butter Flavored Popcorn that actually has a buttery taste. And although the corn always pops into shades of white, the hulls of heirloom varieties range from strawberry pink to blue to purple to black.
If you can get your hands on dried popping corn cobs, you can do something even more fun: Pop it right on the cob. Stripping dried kernels off the cob can be rough on the hands, but it's really fun to put a whole cob in the microwave and have popcorn on the cob come out four minutes later. The only difference to the loose kernel method is to nest two bags together, sliding open-end into open-end, making sure there's enough room for the cob to pop freely.