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.
love caramel popcorn, thanks for sharing the recipe!
I love making my peach cobbler in my LODGE dutch oven over an open fire.
My favorite recipe is for Buttermilk Biscuits!
I don’t really have a favorite recipe. I like to cook vegetables a lot but I don’t use a recipe when I cook them, I just use whatever I have on hand.
My new favorite recipe is for Mexican style rice, it so simple and doesn’t come from a package. But I really want to start working on making homemade breads.
Thanks for the yummy caramel corn recipe. My family loved it!!
Thank you for the great recipe; can’t wai to try it. 🙂
My favorite recipe is for yeast rolls. My mom taught me how to make them as she made them for family gatherings. Though it took me years to “perfect” the making of them, I always enjoy (along with many others) the fruits of my labor.
My favorite cast iron recipe might be cornbread!
I love cooking apples in my cast iron!
This Honey Caramel corn looks yummy. Just getting back into beekeeping after a bear destroyed 11 colonies last year!!!!
Oh no! I hope you can rebuild your hives.
I can’t wait to try the popcorn recipe! I think that would make fantastic Christmas presents for friends!
Looks like a good recipe, also excellent made with local molassas that gives magnesium and other trace minerals.
Yum!
This recipe sounds delicious.
I love cooking with cast iron.
My favorite recipe, especially this time of year, is plain old chili!
This looks like an amazingly yummy recipe! Thanks for posting it!
Thanks for letting me enter your contest. My favorite recipe is ckili slow cooked in cast iron.
We are huge fans of Caramel popcorn, this is a wonderful little twist to the recipe we will be trying!!
Thank you for having a “free” entry for the honey giveaway, as I am not a subscriber to Facebook. I really appreciate the opportunity! Thank you again!!
Danielle – there should be a free entry on the cast iron, too. It’s been a crazy week and I missed that it wasn’t there. Checking with Melissa to get it added, and it should be up later today.
thanks for the great bread recipes. when i was too smart by 1/2 at college, i had roommates that made bread with beer, but I was too dumb to pay attention. Any thoughts?
Was it a yeast bread or a quick bread? The top search result is at Food.com, and it’s a quick bread beer bread.