Gluten-free, healthy and easy to make at home!
Popcorn – there’s something about it: we don’t stop at a couple of mouthfuls – we feel compelled to keep going until we’re fit to pop ourselves. But popcorn is so easy to make at home, and you don’t need a popcorn maker or microwave. You just need a saucepan with a lid. It has to be the most budget-friendly, simple and quick to make snack there is.
It’s really easy to flavour as well so there’s no need to shell out on expensive bags of the ready made stuff; once you see just how cheap a bag of kernels are in the supermarket, you won’t turn back!
This is such an easy gluten-free snack that takes just a couple of minutes to make, and is the ultimate fall-back snack for when friends turn up and you have nothing to offer them. At home, I sit down with my children for a ‘Friday Film Night’ which is just not complete without our bowl of popcorn. And it’s so much better than cinema popcorn. A bag of cinema-type popcorn can contain around six teaspoons of sugar and 600 calories. The toffee style popcorn is more worrying still, with nearly three times this amount of sugar. The World Health Organisation recommends no more than 5-6 teaspoons of added sugar each day.
Although we moan about the crunchy hull that often gets stuck in your teeth, this is actually the part that is richest in the beneficial polyphenols (antioxidants) so you don’t want to discard it. Our recipe is for sweet popcorn; the cinnamon is added for its’ sweet taste, but also helps to regulate blood sugar levels. If you like savoury corn, add a little salt at the end, or cumin and cayenne pepper for a spicy version.
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- 1 tbsp popping corn kernels
- 1 tsp coconut oil or olive oil
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- Heat the oil in the saucepan before adding the corn
- Put a lid on the pan and shake, so that all kernals are coated in the oil
- Put the pan back on a medium to high heat, and shake intermittently; after 1-2 minutes you should hear sounds of rapid popping.
- When the popping stops, lift the lid, add maple syrup and cinnamon and serve immediately.
