The next time you make popcorn, treat yourself to some flavor. I insist. Pop a big bowl of the crunchy stuff and dust your favorite bespoke popcorn seasoning over the whole thing. I’m not talking about that silly bottled powder at the grocery store. Why buy overpriced popcorn salt when you can make an endless variety of flavors right at home? It's so easy and quick there's really no reason not to try it. Let’s get poppin’.
Barring dietary restrictions, eating plain popcorn seems like forcing yourself to nosh on packing material (you really should use it as packing material). You don’t need loads of butter or oil to add flavor, you really just need salt and seasonings that are pulverized down into a fine powder. The super-fine particles get caught in the irregular hooks, crags, and ditches of each popped kernel, delivering well-balanced flavors in every handful. Here are two ways to do it.
Use a mortar and pestle
This is my favorite tool because the mortar and pestle allows you to make a single serving, or a whole lot in one go. I always start by adding the largest ingredients first. The salt is likely one of them, and it’s possible that you’re only sprinkling on salt, so go ahead and add that to the mortar bowl. In my recipe below, I use sea salt and nutritional yeast flakes. Those are the two chunkiest components so they go in first. If you’re using dried herbs, you’ll add them at this step.
Use the pestle to grind down the ingredients with firm pressure in a circular motion around the bowl. I probably did this 15 to 20 times around until I was happy with how fine the salt and flakes got. It took maybe as many seconds to do this. If you’re unsure about how fine the powder is, look at the powder at an angle under a light. You’ll see the light catch some of the salt crystals. If they’re too big, or there are a lot of them, give it all another round of smashing.
Add any other dried, powdered seasoning you like. This is a great time to add seasoning blends, like steak seasoning, or garlic seasoned salt. I used some of Trader Joe’s Everything but the Leftovers Seasoning Blend which incorporates a ton of other ingredients to make a seasoning that tastes like Thanksgiving dinner. Popcorn flavored as Thanksgiving sounds like the right move to me. (It’s never too early to prepare my tastebuds.) Using the same motion, grind down the seasoning mixture until it becomes a fine powder. Your popcorn seasoning is ready to go.
Use a spice grinder or blender
A spice grinder, coffee grinder, or food processor can pulverize your popcorn powder too. The only qualm I have with these is that you might have to make quite a bit of powder in order for it to catch on the blades. Even then, sometimes the grind can be uneven. Add the ingredients in the same order: blend large pieces first, then add the ground seasonings. Blend until you have a fine seasoning mix.
The recipe below makes a cheesy, savory mix with just a bit of heat. My recommendation is to go light on the cayenne. That little minx’ll catch you the wrong way if you add too much. Then you’ll come back here coughing and leaving cranky comments. I don’t want that. Be safe.
Almost Doritos-flavored Popcorn Seasoning
Ingredients:
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes
½ teaspoon Everything But the Leftovers Seasoning Blend
¼ teaspoon paprika
Pinch of cayenne
With a mortar and pestle, grind the sea salt and nutritional yeast until you get a fine powder. Add the other seasonings and grind them all together a few times until you have a homogenous, fine seasoning powder. Sprinkle the powder over your popcorn and toss it to get a more even coating. Save the remaining in an airtight container until your next bowl.