This Easy Salted Caramel Popcorn Recipe is my favorite Caramel Corn Recipe! It’s so easy and adding that extra salt gives it the perfect salty/sweet combo!
Salted Caramel Popcorn Is The Best Caramel Corn Recipe
This Salted Caramel Corn Recipe is possibly one of my favorite snacks of all time! It’s crispy, coated in homemade caramel, easy to make and has the perfect sweet and salty balance. I haven’t met one person who doesn’t love this salted caramel corn recipe because it’s both simple and delicious! This caramel corn recipe is so loved it even made it into my book by popular demand!
I’ve even adapted this recipe into Pumpkin Spice Caramel Corn as well as Caramel Apple Caramel Corn. And certainly if you’re salt sensitive you can leave off the extra salt!
How To Make Homemade Caramel Corn
Making Salted Caramel Popcorn is SUPER easy. It’s a super easy snack for movie night, or perfect to package up and give as gifts around the holidays. It’s pretty foolproof, and you don’t need baking soda or a candy thermometer like a lot of caramel corn recipes call for.
You will need an Air Popper Popcorn maker. If you don’t have one, they are fairly inexpensive. Here’s the link to the one I use. I have had readers use microwave popcorn for this if they don’t have an air popper. Most have great results, but I have never tried it that way, so I can’t give 100% confirmation it will work, although I don’t see why it wouldn’t.
Ingredients / What You Will Need
- Popcorn: Unpopped popcorn kernels are super easy to find. You can generally find them at the supermarket, WalMart, Target etc. You can even order them on amazon. I, honestly, just buy an expensive container of kernels, like Orville Redenbacher, so don’t get too hung up on brands etc.
- Butter: I use salted butter in this recipe because it’s SALTED Caramel Corn, but certainly if you don’t have salted you can use unsalted and add a bit more salt at the end!
- Brown Sugar: Using brown sugar in this recipe makes it a little deeper in flavor. Since you aren’t actually making caramel that cooks until it is a deep amber color, the brown sugar gives you the color that you desire.
- Corn Syrup: I use light corn syrup in this recipe. The subtle sweetness in the corn syrup makes the caramel sauce come together easily and gives the caramel corn the perfect texture. You could certainly use dark corn syrup if that’s all you have.
- Salt: I use kosher salt or sea salt in this caramel corn recipe. The slightly coarser grain and smoother taste gives this the perfect salty/sweet balance. You can use Iodized salt if it’s all you have, but use a light hand. You can always add more if necessary.
Do You Bake Caramel Corn?
Yes! After you air pop the popcorn and make your caramel sauce on the stove, you bake the caramel corn for 30 minutes at 300°F, stirring it every 10 minutes. This step in the recipe is what makes the caramel corn crispy and not chewy. If you like chewy caramel corn you can certainly eat it after you coat it with your caramel. It will get stuck in your teeth though! haha!
How Much Unpopped Popcorn Do You Need For Caramel Corn?
1/2 cup of unpopped kernels yields about 16 cups of popped corn. So for this recipe you get about 16 cups of Salted Caramel Popcorn!
How Much Salt Do You Add To Caramel Corn?
Please realize this is COMPLETELY up to you. I list 2 teaspoons in the recipe as a guideline, but you can absolutely add more or less depending on your personal preference. I stated above that I don’t recommend using Iodized Salt, but if you do, start with only 1 teaspoon, as it is a very fine grain and add more from there. Kosher salt and sea salts are generally a little coarser.
Variations / Add-Ins
Sure! You can easily add in extras to this caramel corn recipe. Here are a few ideas:
- Peanuts: Add these before you pour the caramel sauce on top and coat them with the caramel before baking.
- M&Ms: Add these when the caramel corn is cooled for the ultimate movie snack!
- Raisins: Now this might not be for everyone, but a lot of people like this combo! Add these after the caramel corn is cooled.
- Pretzels: You can add these before you pour the caramel on top or after it’s cooled if you prefer the pretzels aren’t sweet. If you do want to add pretzels to this mix before coating with the caramel, you might need to increase the amount of caramel by 50% to ensure everything gets coated!
More Popcorn Recipes You Will Love
- Fruity Pebble Kettle Corn
- Peanut Butter Cup Popcorn
- Caramel Apple Popcorn
- Red Velvet Popcorn
- Snickers Popcorn
- Popcorn Cake
Salted Caramel Popcorn
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 16 cups 1x
- Category: Popcorn
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Snack
Description
Makes about 16 cups of caramel corn
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn kernels (about 16 cups popped corn)
- 1 cup salted butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup light corn syrup
- 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt, divided
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300°F.
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside.
- Pop popcorn kernels using air popper into a large bowl.
- In a small saucepan melt butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and 1 teaspoon salt together over medium heat. Bring to boil. Boil for 4 minutes without stirring. Remove from heat and let it cool for 2 minutes. It needs to stop boiling before you pour it on the popcorn.
- Pour caramel mixture over popcorn and stir to coat evenly.
- Pour popcorn into lined pan, sprinkle remaining salt on top (1/2 tsp – 1 tsp depending on your personal taste preference) and place in oven. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
- Allow popcorn to cool on a parchment lined counter.
Notes
You can add in 2 cups of nuts to the un-coated popcorn if desired! Coat with caramel as states!
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 cup
- Calories: 168
- Sugar: 9.1 g
- Sodium: 295.8 mg
- Fat: 11.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 15.3 g
- Protein: 1.2 g
- Cholesterol: 30.5 mg
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I have an obsession with popcorn of any kind! When I make mine, instead of baking it in the oven, put your popcorn in a brown grocery bag, pour the caramel over it and shake! Then put it in the microwave for 30 second increments (3 times), shaking between each time. Way less clean up! 🙂
Hi! I really loved your blog today . I am totally with you on the sending kids back to school then crying your eyes out thing.My last son start kindergarden and I’m sad. He’s the last of my 3 sons to go, their 9, 7 and 5,and I’m not ready for the house to be so quiet. For 9 years I’ve lived in chaos and now there’s this HUGE change that has happened.I feel I’m loosing my boys. They don’t like to talk about school so I never know what happened during their day, those long hours they were away from me.Ouch! I too could not wait for school to start. They drove me crazy all summer. I dreamed that I would finally have some time to myself after 9 long years and here I am in this quiet old house, lonely. I don’t know what to do with myself. My world has revolved around them for so long. I miss them.
Then they walk through the door and the chaos begins all over again and I remember, oh yeah…..school!
Perfect for those days that I feel like staying in, staving off the heat, sitting on my comfy couch and watching a movie or two.
I share your love of popcorn and can’t wait to try this recipe, I also cry when my kids go back to school, however, I have a senior in high school and a senior in college:)
I’m a total popcorn addict too. And a snob about the salt. Hence an air popper and special heavy copper pot just for popcorn. But this sounds so perfect. I love a simple but amazing caramel corn. Yum
No, we are in Illinois. I will try at 250. Thank you!! 🙂
I haven’t checked the accuracy but its only four months old. I wouldn’t think it would be off but maybe? Does this need to be cooked or could you just wait for the caramel to cool and eat it like that?
You don’t have to cook it, no, but the popcorn will most likely be chewy, instead of crunchy…
With it being such a new oven, that’s very odd… maybe try it again, and lower the temperature to 250. Are you at a high altitude?
I just made this and mine had burned around the edges after the first 10 minutes. I turned the oven down to 275 after that and down to 250 after the next 10 minutes but still have burned corn around the edges. Now I’m wondering about our oven too although I’ve never had issues with other baking. I’m in Alberta Canada. Not sure if that would make a difference….
Cara, we checked the temperature of our new oven and it runs about 50 degrees too cool. Not knowing how to correct it, we just add a few degrees, depending on how high we need it.
This sounded so good but fifteen minutes in the oven and it was a burnt, smoking disaster! What did I do wrong?? 🙁
That’s crazy! I have no idea how it could have been burnt in 15 minutes at 300 degrees? Have you checked your oven accuracy? Possibly the oven could be a little off, making it hotter than the temp you set it for. Because I’ve made this so many times and a few times I’ve forgotten about it and left it in for too long, by like 10 minutes and I’ve never had an issue with burning…
Cara, my oven cooks hot too. I did this recipe for only a total of 20 minutes. I took it out of the oven after 10 minutes to stir it thoroughly and give it a chance to cool down and then put it back in the oven for an additional 10 minutes. Just keep an eye on it.
Does your oven show temperature in Fahrenheit or Celsius? In Australia for example we use Celsius (on modern ovens at least), but recipes from the USA use Fahrenheit, which is the case here, I assume. 300F is about 150C. Most Celsius ovens only heat up to 250C, hence my assumption. I would be surprised if popcorn burned so quickly at 150C, but if you set your oven for 300C, it would not take long.
All my recipes are in Fahrenheit 🙂
Salted caramel always wins. Pretty sure I would eat the whole batch!
Once I start eating caramel corn it is so hard for me to stop!! It actually is something that I can eat and I’m ok with it making me sick. Besides, it isn’t a real sickness like the flu…it will quickly go away because it is only dressed up popcorn. Mind over matter…
This is certainly something I would enjoy making myself sick over!