The microwave that came with my house is the first time I’ve ever had a microwave that had perfectly working popcorn setting. It has never burnt a bag of microwave popcorn.
Not all popcorn buttons are alike. Per Alec at Technology Connections, some microwaves merely engage a timer and in those microwaves following the instructions on the bag are probably better,. Others have a sensor that looks for the poof of steam that comes from the bag opening its vent. Based on how long it takes for that poof of steam to occur it can deduce the size of the bag and thus how much longer to cook for. On these microwaves I use the popcorn button.
Ah, a fellow Alec connoisseur!
One of the best channels out there
You should check out this video, it’s very eye-opening when it comes to how microwaves work (only linking to YouTube because I couldn’t find a decent Invidious source): https://youtube.com/watch?v=UiS27feX8o0 (edit: https://materialious.nadeko.net/watch/UiS27feX8o0)
It depends on your model of microwave.
Personally, my wife and I intentionally deprived ourselves of a microwave in the house because we recognized that it makes us more prone to heavily processed foods (we’re not crazy “5G/microwaves give you cancer”people or whatever). We just recognized that we like eating whole foods and having one on hand makes it tempting to start buying a lot of garbage foods.
I came to upvote the TC link comment and my mission was a success
Interesting …. I had a similar thought process for an air fryer. When I first got it, it was true: I rationalized that I got chicken strips rather than nuggets so they were less processed. However over time I started to use it better. While I still cook frozen fries occasionally, most of the time I use it for actual chicken
Air fryer is convenient for roasted or hasselback potatoes
I also got tired of manufactured marinara, so making pasta is usually in a lemon butter garlic or pesto sauce, and I’ll cut chicken into strips, marinate, and throw in the air fryer
Looping back to the microwave, same deal. There were times when it just facilitated over-processed food but now I probably use it most for defrosting. This morning i used it to soften some apples in cinnamon and brown sugar to put in pancakes.
I’ve definitely had major changes in my approach to cooking, so hopefully I can stay on my current path
Same. Haven’t had one for over 3 years now and I’m not sure I’m missing anything good. I make popcorn in a stock pot with ghee, powdered salt, and a little turmeric for color. Sometimes a little nutritional yeast or jalapeno powder. My popcorn game has never been better.
That sounds amazing! I’ve been craving popcorn lately but never learned how to do it sans microwave.
How do you handle leftovers? Probably about 80% of the food I eat wasn’t cooked on the day I eat it
This is gonna sound silly but I use my instant pot as a bain marie with the warm function or as an air fryer, depending on the dish. My lunches are in tupperware and I just leave them to warm around 10 am, or I throw on the oven lid and roast it up.
Pretty much the only thing I think I’d use a microwave for is to reheat old coffee. Instead I just make it new.
There are many buttons on my microwave. I have paid no attention to any of them but I know hitting the one at the bottom-right makes numbers go up by 30s per boop, while food go warm.
My microwave popcorn recipe is:
- Put in
- Boop liberally so you know it’s over 5 mins, probably 4–5 days
- When popcorn pops average about one every 3s, start counting to five
- If you reach five, serve
I see we share the same brain cell.
That’s an ominous “if”…
There’s two popcorn buttons. One setting is just an average of time to pop the standard popcorn bag.
The other is a humidity sensor that stops the microwave once it senses a whiff of steam from the bag.
Great video on it below.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Limpr1L8Pss
If someone has a non YouTube link I’ll edit my comment to post that one.
Technology Connections is the best. I was hoping to see this video here.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t work well in either a) dry climates and/or b) high altitude. We have to add about 45 secs to the popcorn mode or it stops short for us. Took a while to get that right.
Fortunately, this is normal at high altitude. Normal cooking rules don’t apply and always have to be modified. Lol.
No idea what your talking about. I live at 6,000 feet in a place with low humidity and the popcorn button on my microwave works perfectly.
I was looking for a comment linking this video and I second the recommendation.
When I want a quick bag, sure do. Kirkland (Costco) popcorn is great and dirt cheap.
But when I want great popcorn we use our popcorn popping machine with some coconut oil, flavocol, and butter topping. This is the recipe the movie theaters use.
The Flavacol is key. More important than anything else if you want theater-style popcorn.
I use a whirly pop with a little oil and then just the butter salt (Flavacol I guess?)
Still tastes good, but much healthier.
It’s gotta be Flavacol or nothing if you want it to actually taste like theater popcorn.
Is that different than “Butter flavored theater salt”?
Completely different. Flavocol is a commercial product and a trade secret. You have to buy it online.
The only difference I can tell is that it’s the commercial version.
Ok
This … This is the way
Yes, because my microwave uses a sensor for it.
If it was just a guesstimated time like some cheap microwaves, I wouldn’t.
How do I check if mine does have it?
Throw a bag of popcorn in there and try it out.
My microwave’s popcorn button works perfect 100% of the time so far
Yeah I’ve never had a microwave with a popcorn button that didn’t make perfect popcorn every time. So long as you enter the weight properly, it’s impossible to fuck up. Gets even easier if you have a microwave with a sensor cooking option, cause then it’s just a single button push to get perfect popcorn every time.
You guys have a popcorn button?
Works great! Just make sure is a sensor microwave
Yes, I like to live dangerously.
The only preset button I use is the +30Seconds button, the rest are useless to me.
You don’t use the baby or snake presets?
Babies get roasted in the oven so they get crispy. And I am allergic to snakes, plus it’s not a full meal anyhow.
Ah. Sometimes when I’m lazy, I’ll use the baby one, but you’re right. Roasting in the oven is far superior.
Try the numbers if you have them. I recently discovered that hitting 2 instantly starts 2 minutes then +30 saves me having to press +30 five times for the equivalent.
I was starting to worry about how much abuse my +30 button could take.
My last microwave was like that. However my current one has low contrast labels on the button pad, so it’s too much work to find where to press. However +30 is conveniently in the bottom right corner
I do use the auto-defrost a lot, which is annoying to find, but in that case I need to press multiple buttons so I need to get extra close anyway
4 times.
4 times extra but five times total to reach the equivalent.
Edit: just to be extra clear in the comment I’d be getting 2:30 with just one press of the +30 button
No. I buy kernals dirt cheap and make it on the stove with ghee
The microwave that came with my house
This is probably the reason why your popcorn button actually works. If your home already has a built-in microwave, it’s likely a higher quality one than what you could pick up from the hardware store. Most consumer-grade microwaves, regardless of the brand or model, are all identical, as they all use components sourced from one single manufacturer that makes one single version of them. The only thing that’s different is the plastic shell they put it all in and the logo they slap on the front, but the important things like the magnetron and control boards are all the exact same hardware.
But the microwaves that are usually built-into the home? Those are the good ones. Those are the ones where the builder spent some good money, because it was included in the design spec to begin with. Care went into the selection of that microwave. That microwave is more likely to have the moisture sensors needed to actually have functioning popcorn, reheat, and defrost settings that do more than just assume an appropriate time/power setting.
Having a proper microwave is a totally different experience. I had one at an old apartment of mine that was amazing. It had a button that just said “Reheat”, and required zero other inputs from me. I could put my food in, regardless of what kind of food it is or what quantity I was making, and press the Reheat button once, and it would bring it to the perfect temperature, hot all the way through. I wish I could’ve taken it with me when I moved out.
Yeah, I don’t have a piece of shit microwave, the button makes perfect bags every time, regardless of brand or type.
The quality of the button is almost directly proportional to the quality of the microwave. Basic ones just are a timer, which is useless. As you work your way up you get various sensors for things like humidity and even microphones to determine kernel pop timing.
The quality of all of those programmed buttons is directly related to those more advanced sensors.
So there are two kinds of microwaves:
- those that use sensor for popcorn (typically it is on top, there are some that use audio)
- those that have no sensor and just use a timer (those ask you how big is the popcorn bag)
You should use the popcorn button on the first ones, with the second type it is better to follow the instructions on the popcorn bag.
