Stovetop Popcorn 3 Ways - Simple, Buttered, and Kettle Corn

Everybody this , I'm gonna show you how to cook popcorn kernels like this here using your microwave .

And this method will give you popcorn that is uh moist in soft , not um not drying hard , like you would get with an air popper .

At least in my case it the air popper .

So all you need is just a , a micro sale like this here .

You wanna pick a plate like this here .

I'm actually using this one .

Now , you can use a sauce pan for making popcorn that's totally fine , but you will end up with a fair amount of unpopped kernels , some burnt popcorn and some smashing a bigger wider pot would help with the smash popcorn by allowing for more room , but you might end up with more burnt popcorn as a trade-off .

The Alton Brown method is to use a mixing bowl and a pair of tongs .

The curve shape of the bowl means raw popcorn kernels will circulate to the bottom of the bowl as the popcorn pops and the wide rim means there's plenty of room for everything to move around .

So nothing gets smashed .

But honestly , I find it a little unwieldy to shake around a bowl with a set of tongs .

You can use a towel to get a better hold .

But even still , you've got an open flame on the bowl you're going to eat out of .

So you got to wait for it to cool down .

I'm sorry , Alton .

But for me , this one's just a little too awkward .

Now , walk is the way to go here .

It's got the same shape of the mixing bowl with the convenience of a sauce pan .

Also , the metal of the wok is much thicker than the mixing bowl .

I do not recommend using a plate like like this here because this will get very hot and you could actually crack the plate .

Um , that didn't happen to me but it could happen .

So I always recommend using a paper plate for this .

So what I'm gonna do is just add some popcorn to the bowl .

I'm going to add a little less than a half cup , maybe three of a cup , just add it right to the bowl and now we're ready to go .

Um You don't need to add any oil or anything else to this .

You can just pop it just like it is .

Now , I should mention this microwave does have a popcorn setting um for popping three ounces and 3.5 ounce bags .

But since we're popping it this way , I don't recommend using that setting because it may not be accurate .

At least for this .

I tried it once and it didn't give me enough time .

So , and of course , the plate helps keep the kernels inside the bowl and helps trap in moisture .

You'll see , you'll see steam escaping as the popcorn begins to pop .

So of course , as with popping popcorn in the microwave , you wanna stop it once the , the popping slows down to maybe one pot per second or so , usually two minutes is perfect timing for this .

Here we are and you may be able to see there's a lot of steam coming out .

So just be careful that steam is very hot , carefully , lift the plate off and know you have popcorn that is um , popcorn that's good and moist .

It's not hard in the center or anything like that at all .

It's perfect .

I just dump the rest of that out and just rinse this out .

So , of course , this is using this stuff I already had here in the kitchen .

Uh , nothing , nothing special .

Um , no , uh , special poppers needed like my , uh , my hot air popper which I dislike .

Um , and so you can season this however you wish .

Um , now if you like , you can , you can spray some olive oil on this popcorn and that'll help , um , stuff stick to the popcorn .

Now , personally I use , as mentioned earlier , I use this stuff here as well as this stuff here since I like movie theater popcorn .

No , actually I have the , uh , the flavored oil blend in the spray bottle .

So all I have to do is just spray it and then toss it , spray it some more .

So this is not exactly the healthiest popcorn .

So if you're , if you're wanting super healthy popcorn , of course , you wouldn't , you wouldn't do it this way .

And that is how I make movie theater flavored popcorn .

So anyways , that's how you can easily pop popcorn in the microwave when you have just regular popping corn like this here .

Hope you guys enjoyed the video .

Thanks for watching .

Same as the standard oil method .

Slowly move the walk around until you hear some popping at that point .

Start shaking the walk like crazy and bring the heat down to medium and don't stop shaking until the popping slows down .

Once the popcorn gets quiet , take the walk off the heat and keep shaking for another five seconds .

Grab your tongues and take off the foil , empty the popcorn into a bowl and finish it off with a couple pinches of popcorn .

Salt , toss the popcorn around and give it a taste .

If it needs more butter or salt , feel free to add in a little more .

Whoops .

Ok .

That's gonna be super buttery , but I'm not complaining .

And that's buttered popcorn clarifying the butter makes sure it has no liquid in it .

So this popcorn stays super crispy on top of that , allowing the butter to brown gives this an intensely buttery nutty flavor .

And if you're a sweet tooth , I've got you covered with some kettle corn .

Kettle corn has such a nice sweet crunchy texture with just a little bit of saltiness to balance things out .

And when you're making it at home , you can adjust the recipes however sweet or salty you like it .

First things first is to set up a tray and line it with some parchment paper .

We'll set this up right next to our pan so we can empty out the kettle corn here and let it cool off .

This will help make sure the kettle corn gets that hard crunchy shell for the hardware .

I highly recommend using a walk .

If you use a regular pot , you're gonna end up with burnt sugars stuck to the bottom of your pan .

As far as I've seen , homemade kettle corn always ends up with a little burnt caramel , but at least with a walk , it's much , much easier to clean off a cast iron skillet may work as well too .

But the shape of the walk is still going to be better for evenly popping popcorn like I mentioned before .

So for me , the wok is the only thing that I have that I'd use to make kettle corn .

Now , we'll take our walk and add in two tablespoons of sugar , a quarter , teaspoon of salt , a quarter cup of popcorn kernels and about two tablespoons of oil .

I like to use a spatula or a wooden spoon to mix everything around a bit before I get started just to make sure the popcorn starts out evenly mixed with the sugar and oil .

Now , we'll cover this up with boil , poke some holes in this and set the heat to medium high .

Same as the other recipes .

I'll gradually move the pan around as this heats up .

And once the popping starts , we'll start shaking .

He goes down to medium and will vigorously shake the walk until the popping slows down .

Once the popping slows turn off the heat and keep shaking the pan for another five seconds .

You can get some residual popping sometimes and you don't want to get hit with a hot melted sugar covered popcorn .

So you've been warned .

So count at least five seconds while shaking the walk .

Then take the foil off with your tongues and empty out the popcorn onto the cooling tray .

I know that temptation can be hard to try your kettle corn straight from the pan but give it at least a minute or two to try out .

After five minutes of waiting , your kettle corn should be cool enough to eat crunchy and still pleasantly warm .

Go ahead and dig in to your own homemade kettle corn and as a bonus , your walk only needs a little bit of warm water and a very , very light scrubbing to clean up .

And there you go popcorn for just about any occasion .

I love the kettle corn , which is actually really easy to make and buttered popcorn is a classic .

But my go to is definitely the electric popcorn .

It's so simple , but so delicious .

If you've never had Sichuan peppercorn , oil on your popcorn .

You got to try it out .

It'll change your life .

Thank you so much for watching and please try these recipes out and tell me what you think in the comments section .

Now , thanks again .

Keep cooking .