Food and Cooking

flavacol -- "better living through chemistry"

Garlic powder and the cheap parmesan cheese in the shaker. So good!

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).

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!

I'm a fan of nutritional yeast and salt

https://youtu.be/3fG8rNHUspU

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

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.

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.

Flavacol :) (https://whatthepopcorn.com/what-is-flavacol/) Basically, it's "movie popcorn flavor"

I know of Gayelord Hauser's Spike seasoning which is salt-free. I use salt for food lots of times, but Spike and melted butter elevate our popcorn's taste.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

I'm a big fan of the Cheesy Seasoning Blend at Trader Joe's!

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.

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

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

Edit: I have this stuff

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.

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.