Take your caramel corn game to the next level with this homemade caramel corn with bourbon and bacon. You’ll love the salty sweet combination of this irresistible snack.
6slicesthick-sliced bacon, cooked until crispy and cut or crumbled into pieces
Instructions
Pop the popcorn using an air popper (or on the stove with oil if you don’t have an air popper). Place popped popcorn in a large bowl. You’ll want enough room for stirring after you pour the caramel over it. I had to separate the popcorn into two bowls. Sprinkle cooked bacon over popcorn.
Cover one or two sheet pans with parchment paper (I used two pans).
In a large saucepan, combine sugar, bourbon, butter, vanilla, and salt. Heat over medium heat, stirring very often (I stir nearly continuously). Continue to cook until sugar melts and caramel becomes a pretty brown (caramel) color. If you’ve never made caramel, you’ll think you screwed this up. It gets sort of dry-ish before it melts. This will be super confusing if you’ve never done anything like this before. It might even freak you out. Just keep stirring. Good things will happen. It takes about 15-20 minutes. Once it melts and turns a dark caramel color and is no longer grainy, trust your gut and act fast because it scorches quickly.
Remove from the heat, add the baking soda (I measured it first and put it in a little bowl so I could add it all at once) and keep stirring. Be careful as it bubbles up quickly and almost doubles in quantity. Quickly pour over the popcorn and stir quickly to coat all the corn.
Spread the caramel corn out on parchment paper lined sheet pans and allow to cool at least ten minutes before digging in.