Does This Hack Really Make Better Microwave Popcorn?

We’re popcorn people. We’re also lick-the-plate people and fill-the-shampoo-bottle-with-water-and-shake-so-we-don’t-waste-a-drop people. So, if there are un-popped kernels at the bottom of our popcorn bag, we’re not above breaking our teeth to pettily get our money’s worth. So imagine our delight when we learned we might not have to do this anymore! Because we heard about a hack to get more kernels to pop: freezing your microwave popcorn. 

Videos by Sporked

Why freeze your popcorn?

According to the internet, where you famously can’t put things that aren’t true, freezing unpopped microwave popcorn bags before popping them into the microwave will result in fewer unpopped kernels.

Now, freezing your popcorn before popping it might seem weird. But it dates back to 1982, when Pillsbury introduced microwave popcorn and kept it in the frozen aisle.

Does freezing your popcorn work?

So, does the “frozen popcorn pops better” theory hold up? According to an Allrecipes writer, not really. They tested the trick with two bags of Pop Secret—one stored normally and one kept frozen overnight—before popping each for the same amount of time. The results revealed that there was actually better poppage (more popped kernels and fewer un-popped kernels) from the unfrozen bag. Maybe the frozen popcorn just needed a bit more time in the microwave to get up to popping temp, and from there would have reigned supreme? Further research is required, but no complaints from our end. If all research came with popcorn, we’d have every PhD in the book. 

So, is the freezer useless for popcorn?

While this particular hack wasn’t hugely impressive, Allrecipes did find that putting popped popcorn in the freezer was the best way to keep it fresh. So, if you just read the introduction to this and immediately ran out to get yourself an industrial sized popcorn freezer, you can still justify that purchase!