Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
When it comes to snacks, popcorn is the perfect blank canvas—unlimited in its potential for experimenting with flavors like salty, sweet, spicy, umami, and more. Popped kernels possess fluff that’s eager to soak up fat of any kind, while their cracks and hollows greedily capture salt and other seasonings; ultimately, popcorn is nature’s way of efficiently delivering flavor bombs to our tongues in rapid succession, and for that service it should be honored.
As a tribute to this great food, we’ve put together 10 popcorn recipes you’ll definitely want for your next movie night, get-together, or any time you need some crunchy, flavor-packed comfort.
Matcha and White Chocolate Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Here we take vibrant matcha—a type of Japanese green tea—and whisk it into white chocolate to form a coating for freshly popped corn. Slightly herbal and not-too-sweet, it has a subtle flavor that’ll keep you coming back for more.
Miso-Soup-Flavored Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
The secret ingredients here? Instant miso soup mix with some pieces of crumbled seasoned nori snack sheets. So familiar, yet so new…and totally crave-worthy.
Bagna Cauda (Anchovy-Garlic) Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Inspired by the flavors of bagna cauda—the famed Northern Italian vegetable dip made from melted butter, olive oil, garlic, and anchovies—this snack is like your classic buttered popcorn but with extra bold, grownup flavor.
Crispy Chocolate Popcorn
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
With a handful of simple ingredients, you can turn plain popcorn into a crisp and crunchy chocolate candy.
Microwave Brown Bag Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Skip the store-bought stuff that comes pre-coated in flavors and instead make your own customizable microwave popcorn.
Brown-Butter Maple Popcorn With Pecans
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
In this addictive recipe, rich brown butter and maple syrup are cooked into a quick caramel, which is then used to both candy the pecans and coat fresh popcorn. A generous pinch of salt makes all those sweet-savory flavors pop.
Za’atar (Thyme-, Sesame-, and Sumac-Spiced) Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Za’atar, a Middle Eastern spice mixture most often made with sumac, sesame seeds, thyme, and oregano, gets a new starring role as a flavor for homemade popcorn.
Chicken Dinner-Flavored Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Meant to evoke the comfort of a Sunday night meal, here we dress up popcorn with the savory flavors of a roast chicken dinner—garlic, lemons, thyme, and mushrooms.
Thai Red Coconut Curry Popcorn
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Inspired by spicy red Thai coconut curry, this snack is flavored with a fragrant mix of coconut, chile powder, lemongrass, makrut lime leaves, garlic, and ginger. A little sugar rounds out their assertive flavors into a compelling little package.
Buttered Popcorn Ice Cream
Serious Eats / Max Falkowitz
Didn’t see that coming, did you? The perfect ice cream for movie night.