5-Minute Easy Microwave Caramel Corn will be on everyone’s list this Christmas! It’s perfect for neighbor gifts and munching on during holiday movies!
Easy Microwave Caramel Corn
Soft Caramel Corn is maybe the best part of the holiday season. And this Easy Microwave Caramel Corn recipe only takes 5 minutes and is so good you won’t stop making it! Trust me, I made it 3 times in the same week! So I knew I needed to share it on the blog after making it that much.
Keeping it in the Family
I grew up eating caramel corn during the Christmas season, but my mother never had a recipe for it. She just sort of cooked it for however long she wanted and sometimes is was incredible and sometimes we just pretended it was incredible 🙂 (Sorry Mom!) So I really wanted to find a recipe for a soft version that I could make over and over again and have it be perfect every time. But I also know the hassles of candy thermometers, not everyone has one and sometimes I can’t even find my own. So I found this recipe made in the microwave! Magic! The first time I made it according to the directions mine turned out rock solid, so I changed it up a bit to make it softer.
How to Make Caramel Corn:
You can make caramel corn in the oven, over the stove top, or in the microwave like this handy recipe! First you pop your corn and then you mix up caramel sauce and then cook the sauce to really turn it into caramel! Soft caramel corn is soft because the caramel sauce isn’t cooked as long as as caramel for crunchy caramel corn! What do you do if half your family likes is soft and half likes it crunchy? You can do what my family does and make this recipe and then take half the batch and spread it on a cookie sheet and bake it in the oven for a little while! You just need to caramel sauce to get a little hotter!
Doesn’t it just look perfect? It tastes even better, I promise. It’s so fun to make a big batch and give to friends or watch Christmas movies and nibble on it.
I use an air popper to pop my corn because I like starting with a blank slate and it’s how my mother did it. But you can pop 2 bags of regular microwave popcorn instead if you want! Just omit the salt in the recipe! Fun tip! Did you know you can store your kernels in the fridge and they will stay fresh much longer? I married into an intense popcorn family so that’s a fun trick I’ve learned.
Put your ingredients in something that will be microwave proof. You don’t want your bowl or whatever to get screeching hot when the caramel boils and bubbles. I love using Pyrex measuring cups or bowls because they’re always safe to use with the heat. And remember, the caramel sauce will bubble up so don’t use a bowl thats too small!
The first little zap in the microwave is just to melt everything together, so stir well! It’s such a simple recipe but the flavor is SO good!
The bubbles… it’s like a hot tub from candy heaven when it’s boiling like this.
After you add the baking soda it will fizz up some more and then turn this golden color.
Pour and just keep stirring until it’s all evenly coated! I love this recipe because it only gets two dishes dirty! No big pans to clean! If you want to pour your caramel sauce over the popcorn when it’s on a cookie sheet you can even line the pan with foil to keep clean up minimal!
Yup, it’s that easy! Enjoy my Easy Microwave Caramel Corn recipe this Christmas! Homemade caramel corn is a tasty family treat I grew up with and I can’t wait to make this with my own kids someday! Merry Christmas everyone!
Easy Microwave Caramel Corn
Ingredients
- 12 cup popped popcorn 1/2 C. unpopped kernels
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white Karo syrup
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/2 teaspoon salt if you use microwave popcorn, then omit this salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
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1. Pop your popcorn kernels (or pop 2 microwave bags of popcorn) and place in a large bowl.
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2. In a microwave proof bowl, I prefer Pyrex bowls, place your brown sugar, Karo syrup, butter and salt. Make sure your bowl have room for the mixture to triple in size because it will melt and then bubble up.
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2. Microwave for 45 seconds, then remove and stir. This just gets the butter melted and everything combined.
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3. Microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds, remove and stir.
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4. Microwave for an additional 1 minute and 30 seconds and stir again.
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5. Add vanilla extract and baking soda and stir until it stops fizzing and bubbling.
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6. Pour over popcorn and gently fold until well coated. Let cool in bowl or on parchments paper. Enjoy!
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NOTE: Every microwave is a little different. After your popcorn cools, determine if you want the caramel a little softer (less microwave time) or a little harder (more microwave time). This way, the next time you make it, your can perfect this recipe for your specific microwave!
Adapted from Our Best Bites! When I cooked mine as long as their recipe said mine turned rock solid, I like a soft caramel corn.
Looks amazing – thanks Lizzy!!
Mary
this caramel corn sis beautiful, every thing you make it, you do it easely Lizzy!
This looks amazing! I only have dark Karo. Can that be substituted, or does it need to be white? I want to make this so bad.
This turned out really good! My only real ‘complaint’ was the distinct flavor of baking soda in the final product.
I did tweak a couple things, but I’m not factoring that into my review. I chose to double the vanilla, add an extra 1/2 t of coarse kosher salt (for more of a salted caramel flavor) and 2 T. of heavy cream at the end. Since I added the cream, the caramel didn’t “set up.” It was more of a gooey, soft caramel, as opposed to crunchy. It was fine, though! Very good flavor!
would this last/stay fresh if it were wrapped or packaged for gifts? thanks!
Really liked this recipe. Thank you. This will be my “go-to” recipe from now on. I did happen to notice something…in your ingredient list you refer to “baking soda”, but in your instructions it says, “baking powder” (step 5). I assume you meant we should use the soda, as that is what most recipes call for with caramel corn, but I just about added the baking powder by mistake! Thought you might want to know!
Oh my, I am so sorry! I’m updating my christmas recipes and saw this! It’s fixed now!
I made this exactly like the recipe and it turned out perfect. Only problem was I couldn’t wait for it to cool. SO GOOD. Thank you!
YES! I know that struggle! This really is one of my favorite recipes for fall!
On your recipe instructions you have “baking powder.” I’m pretty sure you meant to write baking soda. The recipe sounds great. We are going to try it.
Oh my! Thank you!
Is margarine ok or is real butter a must?
I haven’t used margarine with this recipe, so I can’t say for sure that it will work!
You describe this as “soft”, I’m just wondering what that means. Is it sticky? I’ve always either baked it or microwaved it in in a paper bag after coating it with the carmel, and it becomes crispy but not “hard”. How different is this from typical Carmel Corn?
Well, call me impatient. Instead of waiting for your reply I just made the recipe and saw for myself (Gee, there’s an idea). Boy, am I glad I did. It’s easy peasy and so good! It is a little sticky, but not messy sticky, it’s more, rice crispy treat, sticky. I’m glad you mentioned using a large Pyrex measuring cup to microwave the caramel in, because it bubbles up A LOT and it’s lava hot but the handle stayed nice and cool. Great recipe! Thanks for sharing
I’m so sorry for my delay! But i’m so happy you went ahead and made the caramel corn anyway! Yes, I love using the large pyrex bowl for this! If you want it less sticky next time all you have to do is keep it in the microwave a tad longer. Every microwave is different so these microwave recipes can be tricky sometimes. I hope you like the softeness!
I put my popcorn in a paper bag and put the sauce in then shake the bag vigorously.close the top of bag when shaking!
What wattage isn’t your microwave?
The color of my batch is perfect, but the caramel is still a little “wet” and not “crunchy.” This is my second batch (for gifts) and I am running out of ingredients as well as energy for making a third batch today. Can I bake it in the oven for a bit to try to make it crunchy? Do you have any time and temperature recommendations? Thank you!
If you’re wanting a more exact consistency with your caramel corn, use an instant read thermometer 237 is soft ball (soft caramel)
309F is hard crack (crunchy caramel). Lots of stirring will also help the consistency.
If I make a half batch do I cook the Carmel half as long? I want to try this before I make a big batch because I’m the only one eating this
I bet you did like it huh?
Perfect!!!!!! Just made this, was really craving something sweet and didn’t want to have to run out to get something. Found this recipe and it was a hit. Keeping this recipe in my favorites. Thank you.
Didn’t really harden. But, the hubby liked it anyway. Any reason it didn’t get crunchy?
Absolutely Delicious! My 11 year old son made this soft caramel corn with a friend. It was super easy & super delicious! Thanks for sharing recipe!
Could I ask what the white Karo syrup is
and If I go back to the old measure is 1/2cup of butter = 125grms or 4oz?
Not being a home popcorn maker, is the caramel coating similar to a toffee with carb soda added to turn it into honeycomb?
I am a little confused as to how I can get so much popcorn coated.with such an amount of ingredients.
Awesome. Thanks so much for the recipe. It is truly sweet, buttery, and addictive!
I’d like to half this recipe so how long would you microwave the caramel syrup?
So easy and delicious. Thank you for sharing. Tr
Added a step. Baked in oven on parchment lined pan at 250 turning every 15 min for 1 hour. This separated the kernels and gave the caramel a deeper flavor.
I replaced the vanilla with LorAnn Eggnog flavoring to make treat bags for Christmas. Delicious and super simple!
Delicious and so quick and easy!
This was so easy and omg so good that it may be my everynight snack lol. I did half batch!
I almost make the jello popcorn but then i saw this and yes i may have died n gone to heaven iam not sharing gonna eat it all before anyone gets home lol
I made this just now and it turned out better and more tasty than the last time when I made it on the stove. I preheated my oven super low and threw in the popcorn so it could stay warm and mix easier once the caramel was done. Great recipe thanks!!
This is perfect! My family loves it! Thanks
Popcorn can be made in the microwave easily. Use a brow lunch bag. Cover the bottom of the bag with popcorn. Just enough so that you don’t see brown abymore. Pop until it stops popping. Great snack without preservatives . 😉
Super easy to make and it was even better than I expected. Sadly (jk, very happily) my son told me he doesn’t like carmel corn. More for the rest of us!
I just prepared this since I was needing something sweet and didn’t want to go out and get it. This recipe was discovered and was a big hit. I’m going to bookmark this recipe. Thank you very much.
I love this recipe! I’m trying not to eat it all, but it’s so delicious. I followed the directions precisely and my caramel popcorn came out perfectly. Kudos to the chef!
I made this recipe as written. The caramel corn was soft caramel but didn’t stick to my fingers.
I wanted a crunchy caramel corn so I spread the popcorn on a parchment lined baking sheet and put in the oven for 1hr at 250 degrees F.
It got very crisp and crunchy. I couldn’t stop eating it.
So I will add this last step every time I make this great easy recipe.
Yummy. Haven’t made this in a long wwhile. Love using the microwave. Quick and easy. Thanks
I usually prefer salted corn, but this one with caramel is very good. Thanks!