Honey Caramel Corn – A Fun and Easy Family Treat
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Our old fashioned Honey Caramel Corn Recipe is light, buttery and delicious! This snack is great for gatherings or an anytime treat.
When I was a little girl, one of the treats my Grandma Catherine would buy me was CrackerJacks™ caramel corn. I had a collection of all the little toys they put inside the boxes, from mini-holographic photos to magnifying spyglasses. I enjoyed that sweet, crispy buttery caramel corn, but haven’t purchased it in years because they use ingredients that we try to avoid, like genetically modified soy and corn.
My friend, Shannon, mentioned that her family always made a delicious honey caramel corn recipe for the holiday season. She messaged me a copy of a handwritten list of ingredients, saying that she remembered they used a thermometer but didn’t remember cooking details. A little online digging revealed a recipe that sounded similar, so I married the two together and came up with a recipe that reminds me of grandma and the way things used to taste.
Honey Caramel Corn Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar or sucanat
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (homemade extract is great if you have it)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
4 quarts popped popcorn
Directions
Melt butter in large saucepan or cast iron skillet; stir in sugar, honey and salt.
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Cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; boil without stirring about three minutes to 265°F (130°C – hard ball stage). Remove from heat; stir in vanilla extract and soda. When you add the soda, the color will get lighter and the mixture will get more bubbly.
Place popcorn in large oven-safe bowl; slowly pour syrup over popcorn while stirring.
Turn onto greased or reusable parchment paper covered baking sheet. Bake at 250°F (120°C) for 45 minutes; stir every 15 minutes. Cool. Break into serving-sized pieces. Store in airtight container. Makes four quarts (eight servings of two cups each). You can make a bigger batch of honey caramel popcorn and pile it up in a Dutch oven for an attractive, rustic centerpiece on the serving table.
PrintHoney Caramel Corn
Old fashioned honey caramel corn is light and crispy, buttery and not too sweet.
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 5 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 16 cups 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Stovetop Cooking
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup honey
- 1/2 cup butter or coconut oil
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar or sucanat
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 4 quarts popped popcorn
Instructions
- Melt butter in large saucepan or cast iron skillet; stir in sugar, honey and salt.
- Cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil.
- Reduce heat to medium; boil without stirring about three minutes to 265°F (130°C – hard ball stage).
- Remove from heat; stir in vanilla extract and soda.
- Place popcorn in large oven-safe bowl; slowly pour syrup over popcorn while stirring.
- Turn onto greased or reusable parchment paper covered 15-1/4×10-1/4×1/4-inch baking pan.
- Bake at 250°F (120°C) for 45 minutes; stir every 15 minutes.
- Cool. Break into serving-sized pieces. Store in airtight container. Makes four quarts (eight servings of two cups each).
Don’t forget to check out more of our made from scratch recipes, such as:
- Honey-Sweetened Lemonade
- Chocolate Chestnut Brownies – Gluten Free and Honey Sweetened
- No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars – Sweetened with Honey
P.S. – I’d love to hear your stories about family favorite recipes or recipes you remember from childhood. Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
Originally posted in 2014, updated in 2018.
I made this using hot maple honey I made. This is delicious popcorn!
Glad it worked well for you, and thanks for taking time to let me know.
I just made 2 batches of this. One with coconut oil and the other with a vegan butter (I’m dairy intolerant) and both with coconut sugar since I don’t do refined sugars. Both came out great! The one with the oil is more mild with a hint of coconut, while the other is a stronger flavor. This was a great recipe!
Thank you for sharing your experience, Rachael, and I’m glad the recipe worked well for you.
My boy loves popcorn and I prefer to make my own rather than buying it from the shop. This is the perfect recipe. Something simple but hmmm… so tasty. Just wondering, other than honey caramel, do you intend to offer other caramel recipe?
There’s currently a caramel-cream apple dip recipe.
Ok, lets try posting this from the computer seeing as how my phone wouldn’t let me leave a comment: I have a batch of honey caramel corn in the oven as I type. My question is my candy thermometer says that 320F is hard crack and 260F is Hard ball, which one should we use? (I went by temp and took mine to hard ball)
265F is the correct temp.
I love cooking cornbread in my cast Iron it makes it taste so good
My favorite recipe is my baked potato soup recipe with fresh honey wheat bread mmmm mmmm!
This is a great giveaway! This time of year chili with cornbread is my go to recipe.
Delish!!!!
I love cornbread cooked in a cast iron skillet.
My favorite recipe is cornbread and it must be cooked in a cast iron frying pan
Holy moly, I can’t wait to make this popcorn with my kids! And I own just own cast iron grill pan. I could really use this set! Great giveaway.
I can’t wait to try this! My mom made caramel corn as a treat occasionally throughout the winter months when I was growing up. This brings back a lot of happy memories.
I love reading all of the tips and recipes on you site.
Thank you.
Thank you for the recipe! I like that you make it with honey. I think I’ll try it with maple syrup too. My favorite recipe is homemade chicken soup with homemade chicken stock and lots of veggies.
I love these giveaways , my favorite recipe in cast iron is sweet cornbread no better cornbread ever made than in a cast iron skillet makes my mouth water just thinking about it
Thank you too, I also do not have a Facebook account. (or pinterest, or twitter, or any social media…too scary for me!!)
I also belong to all the blogs listed, just don’t “Facebook” about them, but do share links to them with others.
There still is no non-Facebook entry for the Cast Iron giveaway.
I really love all the recipes posted here. It has been quite awhile since I had even plain popcorn. I did have a caramel popcorn recipe once, but have misplaced it, so this is great!
Thanks for all the work you do!!
On the cast iron giveaway, very bottom of the list, “Leave a blog post comment sharing your favorite recipe”.
For some reason, popcorn seems like more of a fall/winter treat in my head, maybe because of snuggling up by the fire or under a blanket for movie night.
The recipe looks great, thank you! And, nothing beats cast iron 🙂