I try to keep my life simple, but don’t see myself as a serious frugal person. I don’t make my own soap, and I eat out a lot. But one thing I recently fell in love with was making my own popcorn. It sounds so obvious, but it never really sunk in that I could make a huge bowl of kettle corn in 5 minutes and $0.50 in materials. To think, I was buying the stuff from the local farmer’s market for five bucks a bag!
Basic Directions
Heat 1-3 tablespoons of any cooking oil on medium high to high and add a single kernel of popcorn in a large, heavy covered pan. I use a wok-shaped stir-fry pan like . After you hear the first kernel pop (the oil is now hot enough), pour in 1/3 to 1/2 cup of popcorn (or enough to cover bottom of pan, no more than 1 kernel deep); re-cover. Shake constantly until all kernels are popped.
Plain Popcorn Tips Adding salt is classic, but fine salt like popcorn or pickling salt sticks the best. Seasoned salt works too. For a gourmet taste and impressing folks, get some . Delicious! I sometimes spray some Pam to have it adhere even better.
Cheese Popcorn I like these line of popcorn toppings. White cheddar and nacho cheddar are good. They are really fine so you don’t need to use much, and they are low in calories (6 cal per 1/2 tsp, which is how much I use at once).
Kettle Corn For every 1/2 cup of popcorn, add in 1/4 cup of plain white granulated sugar. The sugar will dissolve, and after adding some salt you’ll end up with the great salty-sweet taste of kettle corn! Did you know that most microwave versions of “kettle corn” don’t use real sugar because it burns?
Caramel Corn Instead of plain white sugar above, use brown sugar. The molasses will make it taste amazingly like caramel corn. It takes some practice not to burn the sugar by tweaking the heat level. If you love the “” flavor combination like me, now you can make it yourself by making this and a batch of cheddar cheese popcorn.
Cost Breakdown
First are the retail prices in my area, per Safeway.com. A 30 oz. bottle of unpopped Orville Orville Redenbacher costs $7. A 3-pack of 3.3 oz (10 oz. total) microwave popcorn bags of the same brand costs $3.50. This means each microwave bag and costs $1.16, while the same amount (~5 tbsp) of plain kernels costs $0.56. Adding oil and sugar is another ~5 cents. If you went out and bought bulk popcorn you can get it for $1 per pound, making each serving about 15 cents.
Honestly, I can’t imagine going back to using the microwave, besides the ability to make it at an office or dorm room. I actually burn popcorn less when cooking it manually. Pre-packaged microwave popcorn also comes with preservatives, usually . GetRichSlowly offers some tips on , but I say just use a pan. I do like the idea of not using any oil with a , but that’s just one more kitchen appliance I don’t want to deal with.
All I can say is, if you like popcorn, try it!
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