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Sweet, buttery, and crunchy with just a hint of salt, Homemade Caramel Corn is super easy to make! It’s the perfect treat for game night or family movie night and makes a terrific holiday gift for friends and neighbors.
Caramel Corn is one of those recipes that is equally nostalgic and delicious! Whether it reminds you of Fall Festivals, movie nights, road trips, or county fairs, we can all agree that it’s one of the ultimate snack foods. Now, you can bring those happy memories straight into your kitchen with this easy-to-make recipe!
Making Caramel Corn from scratch is so much easier than you’d think! With just 6 simple ingredients and 20 minutes of preparation, you and your loved ones will be snacking on this recipe in no time. Caramel Corn is also super easy to customize with all your favorite salty snacks and other candies; you can even make it pumpkin spiced!
Whether you’re serving this recipe for a Halloween Party, casual entertaining, or family movie nights, it’s always a welcome sight. This recipe is also an ideal gift for neighbors during the holidays or teacher appreciation day. With a delicious combination of sweet and salty flavors, what’s not to love?
Make This Recipe For…
- Movie and Game Nights
- Baby and Wedding Showers
- School Lunches
- Camping Trips
- Road Trips
- Holiday Parties
- Cocktail Hours
- Gifts
Ingredients Needed To Make Caramel Corn
- Popped Popcorn – this is the recipe I use for Perfectly Popped Stove Top Popcorn
- Butter
- Brown Sugar
- Light Corn Syrup
- Baking Soda
- Sea Salt or Kosher Salt
PRO TIP: I highly recommend popping your own popcorn! Microwave Popcorns generally have additional buttery, salty flavors added in. This Caramel Corn will turn out best if you can control the exact amount of salt added depending on your personal tastes.
How To Make Homemade Caramel Corn
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Pop your popcorn, place it in a roasting pan, and set aside.
- In a heavy bottom pan or skillet, melt the butter and then stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil and cook for 5-7 minutes or until the brown sugar has fully dissolved.
- Remove the mixture from the heat and add in baking soda; the mixture will foam up, but continue to stir until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
- Pour the caramel mixture over the popcorn and stir until the popcorn is evenly coated. Place popcorn in the oven and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and spoon the popcorn onto parchment or wax paper.
- Sprinkle with salt and let cool for 30 minutes to an hour, do NOT break apart yet. Once the Caramel Popcorn is thoroughly cooled, break it apart, serve and enjoy!
Delicious Additions To This Recipe
Since this recipe is so simple to make, it acts as a bit of a blank canvas. You can make all kinds of fun additions to this recipe; here are a couple of my favorites…
- Rolos
- M&Ms
- Pretzels
- Butterscotch Chips
- Salted Peanuts
- Candy Corn
- Chocolate Chips
- Reece’s Pieces
- Twix – chopped up
- Pumpkin Spice
How To Serve Caramel Corn
This is a ‘Jack of all trades’ recipe! You can have it as a snack, make a batch with your kids to enjoy during movie night, or add it to school lunches as a sweet surprise. It makes for fantastic party favors any time of year and is excellent as a gift!
Since there are only 6 ingredients, this recipe is great to double or triple. During the holiday season, I’ll make a huge batch, fill holiday-themed goodie bags with Caramel Corn, and then hand them out around the neighborhood.
How To Store This Recipe
I recommend keeping the Caramel Corn at room temperature in a Ziploc Bag so it has an airtight seal. This recipe will keep for 5-7 days before getting stale if it’s stored properly.
More Sweet Treats You’ll Love…
- No-Bake Rocky Road Clusters
- BEST Caramel Pretzel Turtles
- Hot Buttered Cheerios
- Monster Cookies
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries
Caramel Corn
Ingredients
- 12 cups Popped Popcorn
- 3/4 cups Butter – 1.5 sticks
- 1 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup Light Corn Syrup
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- pinch of Sea Salt or Kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Pop your popcorn and then place it in a roasting pan and set aside.
- In a heavy bottom pan or skillet, melt the butter and then stir in brown sugar and corn syrup. Bring the mixture to a rolling bowl and cook for 5-7 minutes, or until the brown sugar has fully dissolved.
- Remove mixture from the heat and add in baking soda, the mixture will foam up but continue to stir until all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
- Pour the caramel mixture over the popcorn and stir until popcorn is evenly coated. Place popcorn in the oven and bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and spoon the popcorn onto parchment or wax paper.
- Sprinkle with salt and let cool for 30 minutes to an hour, do NOT break apart yet. Once the Caramel Popcorn is fully cooled, break it apart, serve and enjoy!
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