Food and Cooking

flavacol -- "better living through chemistry"

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).

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.

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

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 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 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.

https://youtu.be/3fG8rNHUspU

I'm a fan of nutritional yeast and salt

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

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

Edit: I have this stuff

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 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.

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 🎨

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.

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

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

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

Nutritional yeast, garlic powder, msg, and salt is my go to. I mix it up with other spices too but the nutch and msg reminds me of cheese puffs. Have to start with plain popcorn though, I don't like nutch with buttered popcorn.
Coconut oil and salt is also amazing.

Tajin or ranch powder work pretty well too

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)!

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.

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.

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

I always like to mix in some butter and sriracha