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I move quite a bit and suddenly I found myself with microwave popcorn but without any microwave. I'd like to pop them anyway.

I've seen in movies how people pop corn on stoves in various ways but I have never seen it IRL. A quick search on the Swedish web didn't yield any good results - people said it was impossible.

Can you pop microwave popcorn on a stove?

Mikael Dúi Bolinder
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1 Answers1

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After I found the pack of microwave popcorn again I decided to do a quick search on the English web.

I found that the corn in the bag is just normal popcorn mixed with some fake butter and that there'd be no issues popping it on the stove.

Then I looked for good ways of popping corn on a stove and found an excellent video with step-by-step instructions.

  1. Find a suitable pot with a good lid.
  2. Transfer the corn to a bowl (because it can be tricky to get it out of the bag).
  3. Pour some oil in the pot, covering the entire bottom.
  4. Put 2 corns in the pot.
  5. Put the pot on the burner and set it to medium-high (7/9).
  6. Wait for the 2 corns to pop.
  7. Put the rest of the corns in the pot and put on the lid.
  8. Shake the pot and continue to shake it every 10 seconds.
  9. When there's 1-2 seconds between pops you're done!

Then season with butter, salt, or whatever you want.

The result was perfect! Even better than if you'd have put it in the microwave!

Mikael Dúi Bolinder
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    I would mark this as correct then! – J Crosby Sep 05 '19 at 22:42
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    What do you mean by step 2? Besides, you can easily and much cheaper and with a better result tastewise, make normal popcorn in a microwave oven. – d-b Sep 06 '19 at 11:05
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    @d-b, step 2 shouldn't be confusing. The OP specifically said they've moved into a place with no microwave. The whole topic is how to cook microwave popcorn on a stove. – GreyOrGray Sep 06 '19 at 14:16
  • @GreyOrGray How do you put the corn in a bowl if they are tricky to get out of the bag? The sentence/step doesn't make sense. – d-b Sep 06 '19 at 14:20
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    Step 2 is so that step 7 can be completed quickly. Otherwise, you're spending time trying to get the last kernels out while the ones already in the pan burn. – Xcali Sep 06 '19 at 14:26
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    After you discover this, you stop buying microwave popcorn. – mattm Sep 06 '19 at 15:49
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    @mattm, as a kid, we had an air popper as well as my mom doing the stove top popping. They tasted great, but I'd rather have microwave popcorn for the sheer ease. Pan popping was tricky and not easy, as well as cleaning the pan after a mistake being not fun. – computercarguy Sep 06 '19 at 17:35
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    Pan popping is easy; if it's not you're doing it wrong. For what it's worth, when I make popcorn I omit steps 4,5,6 entirely. Just put in oil, rotate the pot to make sure it covers the entire bottom, pour in kernels such that the bottom is covered entirely a single layer deep, cover and turn on medium heat. After the kernels start popping, periodically lift the pot to shake so that they don't burn. Easy peasy. – Roddy of the Frozen Peas Sep 06 '19 at 19:40
  • Stove-top popping makes great popcorn. You might want to buy popcorn in a jar. It's a lot cheaper — you're paying heavily for the microwave packaging. Air poppers also work well. They don't require oil and there's no pot to wash. The only disadvantage is that they're quite noisy. – AndyB Sep 10 '19 at 07:53