Dairy Free “Caramel” Popcorn

Welcome back to Sunday Scratchups, your weekly recipe from scratch around grocery sales and affordable ingredients. This week, we’re actually doing a Costco recipe! I’ve been doing a little more shopping there lately, and one thing that’s always a good buy at Costco is this 27 oz Kirkland almond butter at $10.79.

This is a staple in our house lately, simply because it is made of awesome. Um, I mean: Almonds. But it’s really good, guys! Recently I also impulse bought a very large bag of Skinny Pop — on sale (through yesterday?) for just $2.99, so how could I not?

Well, as I always say: When life gives you popcorn and almond butter, make dairy free caramel popcorn! OK, I never actually did say that before… but I’ll be saying it from now on… I originally ran across this recipe on The Gracious Pantry and thought it looked interesting but that it used an awful lot of honey. Here, I used less and also added in a bit of vanilla to enhance the caramel-like flavor.

Oh. My. Goodness! This stuff is dangerous. My intention was to scratch some up to have handy for dairy free Junior High Guy, but Mr. 8 and I got into it too and the entire batch disappeared in record time. Oddly, it tastes much more like caramel than like almond butter — and with just four ingredients, Dairy Free “Caramel” Popcorn is super easy to throw together.

Ingredients

8 cups popped popcorn*
1/4 cup unsweetened creamy almond butter
1/3 cup honey
1/2 tsp vanilla

* Note: The Skinny Pop I used here was lightly salted — if you’re using unsalted popcorn, you’ll want to add in a little sea salt as well.

Directions

Add popcorn to a large bowl, then bring the honey to a boil in a small pot over high heat. After it bubbles for about 30 seconds, turn off heat and quickly whisk in almond butter and vanilla until well blended. Pour your honey-almond butter mixture over the popcorn and stir with a large spoon until popcorn is coated. Let it cool, then enjoy!

Seriously — if you’re dairy free and have been missing caramel corn, give this a try!

You could probably also make popcorn balls and have other fun with this recipe around the holidays, since it stuck together pretty well once it cooled. I just broke ours apart for easy snacking. 🙂

Dairy Free “Caramel” Popcorn, printable recipe

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Dairy Free "Caramel" Popcorn

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Course Dessert

Total Time 10 minutes minutes

Servings 4

Author Rachel Singer

Ingredients

• 8 cups popped popcorn*
• 1/4 cup unsweetened creamy almond butter
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• * Note: The Skinny Pop I used here was lightly salted -- if you're using unsalted popcorn you'll want to add in a little sea salt as well.

Instructions

• Add popcorn to a large bowl.
• Bring the honey to a boil in a small pot over high heat.
• After it bubbles for about 30 seconds, turn off heat and quickly whisk in almond butter and vanilla until well blended.
• Pour your honey-almond butter mixture over the popcorn and stir with a large spoon until popcorn is coated.
• Let it cool, then enjoy!