Popcorn is a whole grain and healthy, it’s what you put on it that can catapult it into the World of Junk Food. Three cups of plain popcorn have 3.6 grams of fibre, not too shabby. I’ve added spicy red chili oil and chocolate to spice it and sweeten it up without sending it into the Junk Food sphere, bonus there is fibre in chocolate so this gets you to 5.4 g of fibre per serving.

1 tsp canola oil

1 tsp red chili oil – see sidebar

½ cup popcorn kernels

2 oz. dark chocolate, do not use chocolate chips – see sidebar

1. Line one 9×13 inch rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. You need a stove top popcorn popper for this recipe. Pour both oils into your popper. I use a Whirley-Pop™. Pour in popcorn, cover and pop according to the manufacturer’s directions. Tip: for whatever reason the Whirley-Pop™ makes a huge volume of popcorn compared to popping the popcorn on the top of the stove with a large pot. I have no clue as to why, I’m thinking it’s the magical whirley things inside the popper.
3. When popped, divide the popped corn equally between the two pans.
4. In a microwave safe dish, melt chocolate on High for 60 seconds. Remove from the microwave and stir with a metal tablespoon, if it’s still mostly hard looking pieces of chocolate put it back in the microwave and heat for an additional 20 seconds. Remove and stir to encourage the melting process. Let it sit for 1 minute and then stir until all the chocolate is melted. Using the same spoon, thinly drizzle the melted chocolate over the two pans of popped corn.
5. Let set until firm. That’s about 2 hours depending on how thinly you drizzled. For all the impatient people who can’t wait the 2 hours; the chocolate will set super fast if it’s freezing outside and you let it firm up on your porch or balcony without attacking squirrels. If you’re lucky enough to have a walk-in fridge, put the sheet pans in there and you get bonus points for speed of setting the chocolate. For everybody else, including me, we must be patient.

 

Makes approximately 10 cups

One serving = 3 cups Per Serving: 247 Calories, 11.9 g Total Fat, 4.8 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans fat, 0 g Cholesterol,

30.8 g Carbohydrates, 5.4 g Fibre, 4.6 g Sugars, 4.4 Added sugars, 4.7 g Protein, 6 g Sodium, 213 mg Potassium

Carbohydrate Choice = 2 Choices

 

Professional home economist tips:

• I buy PC Red Chili oil at my local Loblaw grocery store. If you can’t find any add the extra tsp of canola oil and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
• What do you do if you don’t own a food scale? My first recommendation is that you go and buy one, but you can still make this recipe if you don’t. I buy the large 300 g size dark chocolate bars from France or Switzerland at my local grocery store, in the candy section. Two ounces is about a 3 ½ x 2-inch piece or about 10 small rectangular pieces.

Photo credit Mike McColl  Photos with Sauce