I have the easiest, and quite possibly one of the most frugal, recipes to share with you. I want to show you how to make homemade microwave popcorn in a brown bag.
Yes, you can literally put popcorn kernels in a brown paper lunch sack, nuke it for a few minutes in the microwave and have a bag of freshly popped popcorn – all homemade, resulting in a fantastic, fast, frugal snack. It’s just too smart!
Have you ever made homemade microwave popcorn in a brown paper bag? It is so incredibly easy that this is one store replacement that will save you loads of money, takes the same amount of time as opening a pre-packed one and popping it, but it also ends up being much healthier! It is also part of our goal and intent to replace store-bought versions of many foods like muffin mixes, pancake and waffle mix, taco seasoning, and canned soups/gravies/sauces too.
Our family lives off of this snack! We all LOVE it, it’s cheap, it’s healthy and it satisfies little (and big :)) tummies. What’s fun about popcorn too, you can top it with dozens of things to make it a fun and unique snack!
Cinnamon roll is one yummy example…. simply make a powdered sugar frosting (powdered sugar with a bit of water or lemon juice until it forms a paste) and then mix this in the popcorn and sprinkle with cinnamon – YUM!! That is just one of hundreds of combinations!
The favorite adult version is a bit of real butter, real salt, and then sprinkled with Turmeric and Cayenne pepper! It is sooooo good! Plus we get the benefits of the spices like Turmeric!
*Please note, the toppings are added AFTER popping it.
It is VERY simple that it is ridiculous!
How to Make Homemade Microwave Popcorn
What you need for homemade microwave popcorn:
- 1/3 cup of popcorn kernals
- 1 brown paper lunch sack
- Toppings of choice
How to make homemade microwave popcorn:
- Simply pour the kernals in the open bag
- Fold the bag over 3 times
- Place the folded side down in your microwave
- Microwave for 2 minutes and watch your bag expand as the kernels pop!
- Enjoy fresh popped, healthy popcorn snack anytime in 2 minutes!
- Top with your favorite toppings!
- *Of course, it’s only based upon what you put on it 🙂
YUM!
Perfect instant popcorn!
We haven’t purchased microwave bags of popcorn in years! We also have an air popper, but this method works just as well. We can usually get 2-3 popping sessions out of each bag before it becomes ineffective for that bag (each time you reuse a bag, a few less kernels will pop, so by the 3rd or 4th use, you start losing a lot more). The first pop will pop nearly all kernels!
You can get bulk popcorn kernals really cheap from many sources!
Our family personally chooses to use organic popcorn kernels and the best price we have gotten them at in the past year as been from Amazon. By the way, on the Arrowhead Mills website, their organic products are Non-GMO in case this is important to you like it is for us.
So if getting an organic version is important to you, perhaps grab them from Amazon.
Tell us your favorite ways to top your Homemade Microwave Popcorn
Here’s a printable recipe on How To Make Homemade Microwave Popcorn:
| Homemade Microwave Popcorn In A Brown Bag (Easy, Cheap and Healthier) | | Print |
- ⅓ cup of popcorn kernals
- brown lunch sack
- Simply pour the kernals in the open bag
- Fold the bag over 3 times
- Place the folded side down in your microwave
- Microwave for 2 minutes and watch your bag expand as the kernals pop!
- Enjoy fresh popped, healthy popcorn snack anytime in 2 minutes!
- Top with your favorite toppings!
- *Of course, it's only based upon what you put on it 🙂
Here's two of our favorites: a sweet and savory version
Cinnamon roll is one yummy example.... simply make a powdered sugar frosting (powdered sugar with a bit of water or lemon juice until it forms a paste) and then mix this in the popcorn and sprinkle with cinnamon - YUM!! That is just one of hundreds of combinations!
The favorite adult version is a bit of real butter, real salt, and then sprinkled with Turmeric and Cayenne pepper! It is so good! Plus we get the benefits of the spices like Turmeric!
See more Recipes and Grocery Store Replacements
Melisa Hill
I love your recipes and advice, but wanted to share a tip of my own. Since you, as I’m sure many of your followers are, are a regular customer of Vitacost, as I have been for years, if you’re not logging in via http://www.ebates.com, you should really consider it. Vitacost’s normal, everyday, cash back rate is 4%, but it frequently doubles to 8% and, on occasion, as high as 12%. I, personally, love to get paid to do my shopping. Who doesn’t love free money?!? 🙂
Carolyn
I’d love to use this recipe, especially turmeric/cayenne! Can you address the issue of some paper lunch bags having fibers that might be dangerous/toxic in the microwave?
Cassie
Hi Carolyn,
I have looked at this in the past and lunch sacks are food safe, even against heat. This is also a trick done by top chefs worldwide. I have even seen some chefs promote putting the oils/butter in the bag. I would assume that if there was anything in the brown bag, that the butter/oil would leach that out, but they promote it! We just simply air pop and top after. Also, I wouldn’t use recycled or colored bags as they do contain fillers that I wouldn’t heat. Just plain old brown food sacks. They are the cheapest anyway. We use an air popper most of the time anyway, but for a super quick snack, this takes me less than 3 minutes to do 🙂
I switched to this to save both health and money. I have heard and read about the chemicals in commercial microwave popcorn and how terrible they are for someone to consume and so I am happy to avoid this if we choose to pop up microwave popcorn real quick!
Betty Saboe
I used the link to Vitacost but did not get the $10.00 discount. I ordered over $30.00 and this was my first order. I must have done something wrong. I do like your web site. I did get my order and tried the popcorn but had quite a few kernels left that didn’t pop. Will keep trying . I do like you web site. Thanks for listening.
Betty
Kristi m
I just started doing this, never thought to lay the bag down! Also have trouble getting my sprinkled on flavorings to “stick” to the popcorn without drizzling butter. I end up inhaling some spices or just having a bowl with my seasonings all at the bottom and fairly plain popcorn. Any tips? Trying to avoid the butter