Rainbow Popcorn is a yummy, colorful way to add pizzazz to your next movie night, rainbow party, or even a St. Patrick’s Day celebration!

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Table of Contents

Why We Love This Rainbow Popcorn Recipe
Ingredients
Substitutions and Additions
How to Make Rainbow Popcorn
Tips
Storage Tips
More fun Party Snacks
Rainbow popcorn Recipe

Get the kids involved with this one! Delightfully fun Rainbow Popcorn is a yummy, colorful way to add pizzazz to your next movie night, rainbow party, or even a St. Patrick’s Day celebration! This homemade kettle corn recipe (aka Unicorn Popcorn) uses only 3 simple ingredients plus the color of your choice! Pick one or pick all the colors of the rainbow to seriously upgrade snack time and deliver happy smiles to friends and family!

Why We Love This Rainbow Popcorn Recipe

Quick and easy no-bake recipe.
Only uses 3 ingredients plus food coloring.
Versatile recipe that you can customize to make it any color or flavor.
Create a few colors or all the colors of the rainbow.
Fun for kids to help in the kitchen.
Perfect for birthday parties, movie nights, Rainbow parties, Pride celebrations, or just to make your day more colorful.

Ingredients

Popcorn
White granulated sugar: You can use either granulated sugar or superfine sugar.
Food coloring: You can use either gel or liquid coloring. I used red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple.
Almond milk: You can substitute your milk of choice. I used a vanilla almond milk, but you can use sweetened or unsweetened almond milk.

Substitutions and Additions

Customize Your Colors: This recipe is the perfect treat for any celebration. It’s so easy to customize the colors for Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, the Fourth of July, or Christmas.
Pick Your Popcorn: You can air pop some plain kernels or purchase plain or only salted microwave popcorn for this recipe.
Fun Flavors: Feel free to use any or all of your favorite flavorings for this Rainbow Popcorn! A few extracts that I love are peppermint or mint, maple, vanilla, almond, coconut and rum. You can also use butter flavoring or something more exciting like cotton candy flavoring.

How to Make Rainbow Popcorn

Rainbow Popcorn is a quick and easy sweet and slightly salty snack recipe that you can make at home on the stovetop. Make a few batches or make many to create all the bright colors of the rainbow.

Make The Sugar Mixture: Whisk together sugar, almond milk, and food coloring in a saucepan or skillet. Heat the liquid over medium heat, stirring constantly, about 2 ½ minutes, until the sugar is melted. Try to keep the thickness of liquid even, so it all bubbles at the same time. Do not burn.
Pro Tip: Gel food coloring will be much more pigmented than a water based food coloring. I used 3-4 drops of gel food coloring.
Color The Popcorn: Add the popcorn to the melted sugar mixture and stir quickly to coat all the popcorn.
Pro Tip: The sugar will harden quickly once off the heat, so make sure to work fast.
Plate The Popcorn: Pour the colored popcorn onto a separate plate or a baking sheet to dry.
Pro Tip: Don’t worry too much if it clumps up; you can break the pieces apart later once it dries.
Soak The Saucepan: Put the spatula in the pan you just used and fill it with hot water to soak.
Repeat: Repeat all of the steps to create new colors until you have used all of your popcorn.
Serve Your Snack: Break up any clumped popcorn and enjoy!

Tips

You can use store-bought microwave popcorn if you don’t have an air-popper. Most bags of microwave popcorn make about 12 cups of popped popcorn.
Be aware that if you use a flavored popcorn it will change the flavor of your final product. I used a salted and lightly buttered popcorn for mine. I think that the salt helps balance out some of the sweetness, so I would definitely recommend it.
If you make the yellow, orange, and red popcorn in that order you don’t have to wash the pan in between those sets of colors.

Storage Tips

To Store: Store your Rainbow Popcorn in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks.
To Freeze: This popcorn does not store well in the freezer.

More fun Party Snacks

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Rainbow popcorn

Author — Jennifer

Serves —

Rainbow Popcorn is a yummy, colorful way to add pizzazz to your next movie night, rainbow party, or even a St. Patrick’s Day celebration!

Print Rate PinSave

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 30

Total Time 50

Ingredients

▢ 12 cups popped popcorn divided
▢ 2 cups white granulated sugar divided
▢ Food coloring (I used red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple)
▢ 12 tbsp almond milk divided

Instructions

Set aside 2 cups of popcorn.
In a heavy-bottomed saucepan or skillet, whisk together ⅓ cup sugar, 2 Tablespoons almond milk, and several drops of food coloring to make a color you like. Gel food coloring will be much more pigmented than a water based food coloring. I used 3-4 drops of gel food coloring.
Heat the sugar and milk over medium heat, stirring constantly, for about 2 ½ minutes, until the sugar is melted. Try to keep the thickness of liquid even, so it all bubbles at the same time. Do not burn.
Add in 2 cups of popcorn to the melted sugar mixture and stir quickly to coat all the popcorn. The sugar will harden quickly once off the heat, so make sure to work fast.
Pour the colored popcorn onto a separate plate or a baking sheet to dry. Don’t worry too much if it clumps up; you can break the pieces apart later once it dries.
Put the spatula in the pan you just used and fill it with hot water to soak.
While the pan is soaking, set aside the next 2 cups of popcorn and prepare the next sugar, milk, and food coloring set.
Clean the pan and repeat steps 1-5 for the remaining colors of popcorn, until you have used all of your popcorn.
Break up any clumped popcorn and enjoy!

Notes

Storage:

To Store: Store your Rainbow Popcorn in an airtight container for 2-3 weeks.
To Freeze: This popcorn does not store well in the freezer.

Tips:

You can use store-bought microwave popcorn if you don’t have an air-popper. Most bags of microwave popcorn make about 12 cups of popped popcorn.
Be aware that if you use a flavored popcorn it will change the flavor of your final product. I used a salted and lightly buttered popcorn for mine. I think that the salt helps balance out some of the sweetness, so I would definitely recommend it.
If you make the yellow, orange, and red popcorn in that order you don’t have to wash the pan in between those sets of colors.