Is popcorn healthy?

Who doesn’t love Popcorn right? I sure do. Unfortunately, the pre packaged popcorn you might be used to buying for your movie nights are packed full of salt, sugar, oil and added preservatives too. I opened up one of those microwave popcorn bags the other day to see what was inside before the popcorn was popped and it was kinda gross. Don’t panic though. You’ll be pleased to know you can easily and quickly make popcorn at home with this sweet and salty popcorn recipe. It doesn’t have to contain any oil, sugar or excessive amounts of salt. So you’ll never have to search for popcorn recipes again! In fact, popcorn on its own is a really healthy high volume snack. There’s endless flavour combinations both sweet and savoury. Today we are going to do a timeless classic, sweet and salty. This popcorn recipe will create 1 70kcal serving so if you would like to make more servings don’t forget to change the ingredient quantities.

Do you have a diet restriction?

This sweet and salty popcorn recipe is suitable for a wide range of diet restrictions such as:

Vegan
Vegetarian
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Nut Free
Low GI
Low FODMAP

Do you need a popcorn maker to make popcorn?

NO! All you need to make this popcorn recipe is a saucepan and a lid, it doesn’t even have to be a well fitting lid, its just to stop the popcorn flying all over your kitchen. Find out the science behind popcorn below!

The science behind making popcorn:

Have you ever wondered, how does popcorn work? How do those tiny little kernels turn into big white puffy deliciousness? Well, lets find out!

There are three main components to making the popcorn in this sweet and salty popcorn recipe pop. These are water, heat and starch. Inside every little corn kernel is a tiny drop of water, surrounded by starch. When you heat up the corn kernels, the water expands and the popcorn explodes. This happens because the hard shell around it cant stretch. As this happens the starch in the kernel expands and puffs up, much the same as flour does when it bakes in a cake. So, in short and science-y terms, the heat causes a physical explosion of the kernel shell, causing a chemical reaction in the starch.

So now you’ve had your science lesson and you know how it all works. You can make your own popcorn wherever you are as long as you have popcorn kernels and heat!

Step 1: Heat your pan.

Weigh out your kernels and pre heat a saucepan with a lid. As explained above, the heat is an important factor in making sure the popcorn pops so you want to make sure your saucepan is hot enough before putting the kernels in. You can check your saucepan is hot enough by dropping a small splash of water in, it should sizzle and evaporate almost instantly.

Step 2: Hear the pops

Drop in your kernels and replace the lid. Shake saucepan every 15-20 seconds to prevent burning. As the bottom of the pan is hot and dry popped popcorn could burn easily if not shuffled around. Likewise, the unpopped kernels could become to hot and dry out that internal moisture and not pop at all.

Step 3: When the popping stops.

Once your popcorn starts popping keep counting to 10 but reset to 0 every time your interrupted by a pop, when you are finally able to count to 10 without any interruptions then your popcorn should be all popped, any kernels that have not popped by now are unlikely to and you risk burning your popcorn if you leave it on the heat any longer.

Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle on a pinch of sugar or sweetener and salt. Now your sweet and salty popcorn is ready to enjoy! You can store your popcorn in an airtight container for several weeks.

Variations:

If sweet and salty isn’t really your jam why not try this popcorn recipe with another flavour such as:

Just sweet
Just salty
Spicy (cayenne pepper and paprika mix)
Italian herbs

For more yummy low calorie snack ideas, why don’t you check out these. They’re great whether you like salty or sweet:

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