A girl can’t live on cranola alone. Enter honey peanut butter popcorn – my new snack of choice. It’s sweet, slightly sticky and sinfully delicious. Give me a cup or three and I’m in heaven.
Jason and I have been eating a lot of popcorn lately. In fact, it’s become part of our Friday night ritual. After dinner in, Jason will queue up a movie and I’ll make a big bowl of stove-top popcorn. If we’re in the mood for something savory, I’ll season it with salt, cracked black pepper and garlic powder, dried dill or grated cheese. Otherwise, I’ll drizzle it with caramel sauce or sprinkle on some cinnamon.
For more special occasions, I’ll prepare this honey peanut butter popcorn. The beauty of the recipe is there’s no baking involved; you simply boil a few ingredients and pour the hot syrup over the popped kernels, and then let it cool.
I like to serve this popcorn alongside peanut butter pretzels (another favorite snack of Jason and mine) and roasted peanuts for flavor and textural contrast.
Whip out a batch of this honey peanut butter popcorn and I promise you’ll be craving more. (I cooked two batches in two days and had to stop myself from making a third.)
Recipe adapted from The Kitchn.
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- ⅓ cup popcorn kernels
- sea salt
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup honey
- ½ cup creamy or crunchy peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- In a 3-quart heavy pan with a tight-fitting lid, heat coconut oil over medium heat. Add 3 kernels to the pan, cover and continue to heat. When the kernels pop, add remaining kernels, cover and shake the pan. As the kernels start popping, shake the pan continuously until popping stops. Remove from heat and pour the popcorn in a roasting pan to cool. Remove unpopped kernels and lightly salt the popcorn to taste.
- In a small sauce pan, combine the sugar and honey. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook mixture for 3 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the peanut butter; stir with a silicone spatula until smooth. Then stir in the cinnamon and vanilla extract. Cook mixture over medium heat for 1 minute.
- Remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour mixture over the cooled popcorn. Stir with a silicone spatula until the popcorn is coated evenly.
- Spread the popcorn in a single layer in the roasting pan. Gently break up any large clumps with your hands. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
This recipe first appeared on Pottery Barn’s Inside & Out blog as part of a game day spread. They kindly provided some of the serveware seen in this post, including the cute football leather koozies.
