Ensure Your Movie Theater Popcorn Is Perfectly Buttered With An Easy Hack

Most people visit their local movie theater with one snack in mind. Freshly popped with lots of butter, movie theater popcorn is unmatched. There's just one snag that can make this iconic snack less than stellar: uneven butter distribution. Between the deep, narrow container and the pump the theater provides, only the top layer manages to get decent coverage. You can stir and mix the popcorn as much as you please — the container is too deep, and the bottom layer remains untouched. Meanwhile, your hands are covered with delicious but greasy movie theater butter. But with one simple hack, you can avoid this unfortunate occurrence.

TikTok user @adventureswithcolleen posted the trick to her account. The video shows the TikTok user illustrating the ingenious method of butter distribution she learned from her aunt. To start, she places a long plastic straw into the bucket of popcorn so that it stands on its own. Then, she places the bucket under the butter nozzle with the straw as closely aligned to the butter nozzle as she can get it. She starts the butter stream and adjusts the alignment so the golden liquid pours directly into the straw, funneling butter into the often neglected lower levels of popcorn. 

@adventureswithcolleen

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While it's not shown in the video, you can lift the straw as needed to control which layers get butter. Once the lower levels have had their share of butter, you can then butter the top layer. 

As genius as the straw trick is, it's just one method for flavoring up your movie theater popcorn. If the gloopy, thick liquid butter the theater provides can be a little much, you can go another route in lubricating your puffed kernels. The spray bottle hack for superior movie theater popcorn requires you to buy a dollar store travel spritzer bottle, which you can fill at the condiment counter. You can also fill it at home, but make sure you use clarified butter so it keeps its liquid form. If you do that, you can play around with flavors too. For example, Ina Garten elevates her microwave popcorn with melty truffle butter. Or you can add a mixture of cinnamon and sugar for a sweeter take. Just bring your filled spray bottle with you into the movie theater and spritz the popcorn as you go, assuming you can get it past security.

Now, if butter isn't your popcorn bag, there are other options. If you prefer your popcorn to be cheesy, bring a shaker of powdered cheese-flavored topping to mix in. Or if you're hoping to avoid dairy, nutritional yeast is the one ingredient that can make popcorn taste cheesy without cheese.