homemade kettle corn (never burned!)

Learn how to make the best kettle corn: crispy, sweet, salty, and never burned! It’s a million items better than what you can get at the farmer’s market and a fraction of the price.

I’m a huge popcorn lover. A big bowl of salty popcorn and a glass of Gruner Veltliner might be my dream meal. And now that we have kids, it’s so much more fun to make a giant bowl of buttery popcorn.

What the kids have come to love, though, is kettle corn. Thank you farmers markets and pumpkin patches and fairs. The good news, though, is homemade kettle corn is easy, fast, and cheap, and I can’t wait to teach you to make your own. 

Speed is the name of the game with kettle corn.

 It can very quickly go from sweet and crisp to burnt and tough. Have all of your ingredients prepped, read the recipe beforehand, and be prepared to make it a few times to get your groove. 

Keep reading-- you're only a few minutes away from your very own bowl of sweet and salty popcorn. 

kettle corn ingredients

how to make kettle corn at home:

1. Heat oil in a heavy pot.
2. Pop a few test kernels.
3. Add remaining kernels and toss to coat in oil.
4. Add sugar and salt; cover.
5. Shake and cook every 3 seconds until popping starts, then constantly until it slows.
6. Dump onto a sheet pan when there’s 1 second between pops.
7. Let cool, pick over, and enjoy!

what is kettle corn?

We’ve all eaten kettle corn, but what exactly is it?

Think of it as sugar popcorn. It’s regular popcorn with a bit of sugar cooked in the mix.

We add sugar while the kennels pop, so it melts and coats the popcorn in a thin layer of glassy sugar. The sugar is not supposed to caramelize, though, and the best kettle corn has a clean sweet-salty taste without any notes of cooked sugar.

For extra buttery flavor, use clarified butter. For coconut flavor, use virgin coconut oil.

a note on the ingredients:

• Coconut oil: I love making popcorn with coconut oil. It leaves a non-greasy texture and delicious flavor. If you want to keep your popcorn neutral flavored, use refined coconut oil which doesn’t have any coconut-y flavor. Refined also has a higher smoke point, which is great for popcorn! 
  • For more neutral oils, try canola oil or other high-smoke point oil, such as avocado oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and corn oil. These oils do tend to make kettle corn with a greasy feel, though, which isn’t my favorite.
• Start with great kernels! I love these Baby White kernels which have minimal hulls, a sweet corn flavor, and an extra small and tender puff.
• Fine salt: I almost exclusively cook with kosher salt, but not here. Good popcorn demands fine salt that can stick more easily to the popped kernels and evenly flavors the popcorn. In a pinch, just grind up kosher salt in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder!

tips for the best kettle corn: 

• Heat: Keep your stove around medium/ medium-high heat. If you go too high, the sugar will burn and the popcorn will be chewy from popping too fast. 
• Act fast. Get the kettle corn out of the hot pot as fast as you can, right when you hear the popping slow to 1- 2 seconds. The sugar will start to caramelize and burn in the hot pan.
  • Err on the side of having a few unpopped kernels and pull them out when the kettle corn has cooled. 
• Get a popcorn maker with a stirring mechanism for the easiest popcorn! I love our PopSmith (not sponsored!) popcorn maker. It’s heavy-duty and makes it easy to stir the kettle corn while it pops.
• Accept failure: It takes a few batches to get your groove. Let the first few times be test runs to dial in the right heat, timing, and speed to nail sweet, crisp, fluffy kettle corn. Every stove, pot, and type of popcorn will pop differently. Practice makes perfect!
• Rinse and soak your pot in water right away to loosen and dissolve leftover sugar.
• Pick over your kettle corn to remove unpopped kernels! They can stick in the sugary clusters of popcorn and don’t always fall to the bottom of the bowl.

how to store kettle corn:

Store kettle corn in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Depending on the humidity, the kettle corn may get sticky and soft. Re-crisp it on a sheet pan in the oven (200°F) for about 10 minutes or until warmed through. It will crisp up as it cools.

more popcorn and snack recipes to try:

truffle popcorn

spicy roasted nuts

crunchy grissini (hard Italian breadsticks)

soft german lye pretzels

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