Remember my recent popcorn post? Well, several people wrote to ask for my sister’s caramel corn recipe. It’s so delicious that I can’t not share it–but so I don’t completely neglect the “svelte” part of this site, I’m also going to post a recipe for the low-cal ranch popcorn that I’ve been munching on lately. Try it and tell me you don’t love it.
Note: both of these recipes, which make enough popcorn to serve a couple people, call for air-popped popcorn. If you don’t have an air popper, I highly recommend investing in one (I love popcorn so much that I’ve burned through two already–no joke!).
Caramel popcorn
3/4 cups of popcorn kernels
1/2 cup of Brown Sugar (dark or light)
1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)
1/8 cup of light corn syrup
1/2 tsp baking soda
*Pop the popcorn and divide it in two large bowls
*Melt brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup together until they start to boil
*Mix the baking soda into the brown sugar mixture
*Pour the mixture over the popcorn and stir like crazy. Voila! Carmel corn
Ranch popcorn
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1/2 a packet of Hidden Valley Ranch ranch salad dressing and seasoning mix (love this–half a packet only adds 20 calories total!)
Cooking spray - I use Spectrum organic canola spray oil
Pop the popcorn. Spray with cooking spray, then sprinkle ranch seasoning over it. Toss and repeat.
Enjoy!
-Camille
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Oh, this is fabulous. There are certainly occasions for one where the other just won’t do! Thanks for sharing both.
Jael, I couldn’t agree more. Guess which one I had last night? Hint: it contains butter.
Ooh love the ranch recipe. I have to say I love popping popcorn in a little oil in a pot. I also heard good things about the Whirly Pop, hmn.
I like to eat popcorn as a snack to avoid eating something too sugary or unhealthy. I actually make homemade microwave popcorn by putting popcorn kernels with a drizzle of olive oil into a brown lunch bag, folding it over twice, and microwaving until there are 2 seconds between pops. And I too spray cooking spray over my popcorn to get salt and seasonings to stick to it. That ranch idea sounds really good too–as a ranch dressing-loving Texan, I feel I should’ve already thought of that! I also like sprinkling it with grated parmesan.
You can actually buy a popcorn popper that’s microwave safe that pops the kernels without oil like an air popper (and without the nasty bad-for-lungs chemicals of microwave popcorn packages/stuff for landfills), too. Mine was less than $10. It’s basically a heavy duty bowl with cover made of a special material.
Great ideas, Lauren and Lauren! And Sue: I’ve never heard of a popper like that–very cool!