Recipe This | Instant Pot Popcorn (2024)

Calling all popcorn fans. Let me show how to make delicious instant pot popcorn that tastes just as good as the cinema, but for a fraction of the price.

You will fall I love with instant pot popcorn. So much easier than typical popcorn in a pot and easy to mix and match flavours.

This is an updated post. We originally shared with you all about instant pot popcorn back in early 2017. Today we have a better recipe with better tips and better photos and have upgraded our instant pot.

Instapot Popcorn

It feels like when you get an instant pot, you go on this brand new cooking journey. Instant pot recipes are made that you would never have made unless you owned an instant pot.

For example, until the instant pot made its way into the Milner kitchen in late 2016, I had never made cheesecake and now I love instant pot strawberry cheesecake, I had never cooked dried beans having only bought cans and now love instant pot kidney beans and instant pot black beans.

I am also obsessed now with instant pot veggie stock, something that back then I would never have considered making myself.

So, when me and Dominic and the kids stood in front of the instant pot over Christmas 2016 and made instapot popcorn it felt so surreal for something we would normally buy already popped and ready for eating.

Well, it was great fun and OMG homemade popcorn is the BEST. Today, I am taking a trip down memory lane to one of my first favourite instant pot recipes and showing you exactly how to make popcorn in the instant pot.

Are You New To The Instant Pot?

Plus, as well as our extremely popular instant pot mini course which teaches you the instant pot basics in 5 days, we also have our instant pot bucket list. That is loaded with 30 FREE bucket list worthy instant pot recipes.

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Can You Make Popcorn In An Instant Pot?

Yes, you can make popcorn in the instant pot. Just like you can make popcorn in a pan on the stovetop.

Just like making popcorn in a pot you are getting the cooking pot hot enough, popping the corn with the lid on to catch the popping corn and then you have perfectly cooked popcorn ready for movie night.

Can I Use Pressure Cooker To Make Popcorn?

Yes, you can use any pressure cooker to make popcorn. Pressure cooker popcorn could be made in the instant pot, ninja foodi, pressure king pro, mealthy, or whichever brand of pressure cooker you currently own.

Simply use your pressure cook button and follow our simple pressure cooker popcorn instructions.

Can Popcorn Be Made In An Air Fryer?

Yes, you can make popcorn in the air fryer. But that doesn’t mean you should. Instant Pot popcorn is fantastic because it’s the old school way of doing popcorn. I.e. the popcorn pops in a pot, until it is all done.

But an air fryer in comparison uses air technology and doesn’t work the same way as a pot does.

This means, it is easy for the popcorn in the air fryer to get stuck and damage your air fryer.

We did a recipe showing you air fryer popcorn along with the photos of what the air fryer looked like afterwards. Plus, a video that shows similar.

We recommend you watch the video and view the photos before making air fryer popcorn.

Why Won’t My Popcorn Pop In Instant Pot?

We have made this mistake ourselves when we first made popcorn in the instant pot. The reason it goes wrong is because the instant pot inner pot is not hot enough and not sizzling from the oil enough.

This results in the corn taking too long to get hot enough and then failing to pop.

Instant Pot Popcorn Without Oil

You MUST use oil when making instant pot popcorn. I know we all want to cut calories and want to make instant pot popcorn without oil, but you need the heat from the oil to pop your corn.

You also need a combination of extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil for the best results. Otherwise, you will create a dry popcorn and it won’t be as nice as what you have at the cinema.

Though note, this popcorn in an instant pot recipe only uses a little oil to make popcorn for four people, so the oil in your diet is very low.

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Popcorn Instant Pot Ingredients

Corn – Note that those kernels of popcorn expand in size when you make your pressure cooker popcorn, so you really don’t need much. In fact, ½ cup of kernels will easily fill two giant popcorn boxes.

Oil – You will need a little of both coconut oil and extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil and butter. Depending on your preferences.

Seasoning – Then your favourite seasoning. For example sea salt for salted popcorn and maybe some caster sugar for sweet popcorn depending on how you like it.

Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this pressure cooking popcorn recipe it has just been our Instant Pot. We have this one and it’s my favourite and great for a lot of different instant pot veggie recipes.

Plus, we recommend you head over to our instant pot recipes category as we have many electric pressure cooker recipes and have been using instant pots for 5 years.

Instant Pot Popcorn With Coconut Oil

The reason why you make popcorn with coconut oil is the creamy texture it has and the burn point.

In other words it will stop your instant pot popcorn from going dry and give it the best flavour and crunch ever.

Instant Pot Popcorn Without Glass Lid

I love to save money and I am frugal, and I only buy instant pot accessories that I really need. With that said, I have never bought an instant pot glass lid.

I see them as pointless when most of the foods you cook in the instant pot require the proper lid. And then just use the regular pressure cooking lid for making popcorn and for slow cooking.

In this instant pot popcorn recipe, rest assured you can do so without the glass lid.

How To Make Popcorn In Instant Pot?

• Sauté. Set the instant pot to the sauté setting and press the sauté button about three times until it reads more. This puts it on the highest sauté heat. You can read more about it in our instant pot less normal more podcast episode.
• Oil. Then after setting the saute, add in the butter and coconut oil and wait for the instant pot to bring up its hot warning.
• Hot. Once the instant pot says hot (about 3 mins) add in the corn and stir to make sure all corn is covered in the oil and butter.
• Lid. Place the lid on the instant pot as soon as the first corn kernel pops and then listen and wait until it stops popping.
• Remove. Then remove the lid off the instant pot, press cancel, and you have popcorn ready to eat.

And I am sure you can see now how simple and easy it is to cook popcorn in instant pot and why you should be doing the same.

More Instant Pot Treats

• Instant Pot Chocolate Cake Bites
• Instant Pot Sticky Toffee Pudding
• Instant Pot Box Cake
• Instant Pot Banoffee Pie
• Instant Pot Rolo Yoghurt

Your popcorn pressure cooker recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.

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