These salted caramel popcorn balls combine rich, buttery caramel, light and fluffy popcorn with a touch of sea salt, for a treat that is crunchy, salty, sweet and gooey all in one!
Every year around Halloween my mom, grandma, brother and I would sit around my grandma’s kitchen table and make caramel popcorn balls. It was a hot, sticky mess but we always had so much fun making them and eating them!
My grandma’s house was one of the prime trick-or-treating houses in her neighborhood. She would bag each popcorn ball in an individual baggie tied with ribbon and always had a big bowl full of caramel popcorn balls and ghost lollipops (did you guys remember these from when you were kids? So cute!) to give away to the trick-or-treaters.
You know, back in the days when people actually trusted homemade treats from friendly neighbors and weren’t afraid of their children’s candy being filled with sharp objects, anthrax and diabetes. Oh the good ole’ days.
You can bag each popcorn ball in an individual baggie tied with cute ribbon for easy gifting or stack in a pyramid or big bowl for a party snack. This year I stuck a wooden skewer in each of them arranged them in a jar candy corn for a sweet treat display!
I usually make my caramel popcorn balls into balls about the size of a baseball, but you could go golf ball sized if you wanted to make more bite sized ones.
Have fun adding different mix-ins and trying out new combinations. The day that we made these caramel corn balls we tried dark chocolate chunks and white chocolate chips, Reese’s Pieces candies, and candy corn. The Reese’s Pieces were proclaimed the favorite of favorites amongst my friends. Really you can’t go wrong. 😀
Enjoy!
- about 24 popcorn balls
Ingredients
- 24 c popped popcorn (1 cup unpopped kernels)
- 1/2 c (1 stick) butter (plus extra for buttering your hands)
- 12 oz (1 bag) caramels
- 16 oz (1 bag) mini marshmallows
- 2 tbsp. corse sea salt (plus more for sprinkling on top)
- !Mix it up! (optional)
- 2 c mix-ins such as chocolate chips, Reeses pieces, candy corn, sprinkles, etc (optional)
Instructions
- Pop popcorn kernels. I prefer using my awesome air popper to do this! Portion out half (12 cups) of the popped corn in a large mixing bowl.
- Prep your workspace by laying out a sheet of wax paper or aluminum foil. Measure our your mix-ins.
- In a large sauce pan over med-high heat, melt butter, caramels and marshmallows, stirring regularly until smooth, uniform and melted.
- Portion out half (12 cups) of popped corn in a large mixing bowl.
- Slowly drizzle about half (just guestimate it) of the warm caramel mixture on top of the popcorn. Sprinkle with 1 tbsp of coarse sea salt. Gently fold together with spatulas or wooden spoons. Be careful, the caramel can be VERY hot! For this step, it really helps to have a friend pour while you stir.
- Sprinkle with 1 tbsp of coarse sea salt.
- Gently fold together with spatulas or wooden spoons. Be careful, the caramel can be VERY hot!
- Gently fold in your mix-ins (it helps to do this after the caramel is in, otherwise the candies just sink through the popcorn to the bottom of the bowl and don't get mixed up very well).
- Gently pack the popcorn and caramel mixture into baseball sized balls (you can rub a little bit of butter on your hands to prevent the caramel from sticking to your fingers). Place formed balls onto wax paper and allow to cool.
- Repeat with remaining popcorn and caramel sauce. Try a different mix-in with the second half if you'd like!
- If you are making plain salted caramel balls with no mix-ins, I like to sprinkle a little coarse sea salt on top of the finished balls to give them a little extra yummy bite of salty goodness!
- Repeat with remaining popcorn and caramel sauce. Try a different mix-in with the second half if you\'d like!
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