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 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

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!

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

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.

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

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.

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

Edit: I have this stuff

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

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)!

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/

Grated Parmesan cheese

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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!