- I tried three different brands of white-cheddar popcorn to find out which snack was the tastiest.
- Smartfood's popcorn was delicious, but the snack left an unsavory sludge on my fingers as I ate.
- Late July, a lesser-known brand, had the best popcorn that was crunchy, salty, and very flavorful.
I'm a chef who loves to snack on popcorn, but it can be hard to know which brand is going to best satisfy a craving.
I enjoy most flavors of the classic snack, so this time, I picked up a selection of bagged white-cheddar popcorn to try. I also removed each from the packaging before trying to cut out potential biases related to brand.
Here's how the popcorn stacked up, ranked from my least favorite to favorite:
Smartfood's white-cheddar popcorn was flavorful but too heavy and greasy
Smartfood's popcorn had the most flavor of the bunch by far, but it came at a cost because these kernels were heavier and greasier.
Compared to some of the brands with shorter ingredient lists, this Smartfood popcorn seemed to have a more artificial taste. Plus I noticed that every piece of Smartfood popcorn left my fingers covered in a dusty, sticky sludge.
Skinny Pop's version had a good crunchiness, but it wasn't cheesy enough for me
Smartfood goes too far with the cheesy cheddar powder, but Skinny Pop stops just short.
There's no odd or off-putting powdery coating that sticks to your hands, but the popcorn just doesn't scream cheddar flavor. In fact, it's hard to detect much of a cheesy flavor at all.
Still, these kernels have a good crunch and a nice saltiness to them.
Late July's white-cheddar organic popcorn was my unexpected winner
In an unexpected upset, the popcorn brand I felt was less mainstream than the others was my favorite.
Late July's organic popcorn is crisp and crunchy, with none of the soft cardboard staleness that competitors had. The kernels have a light dusting of cheddar that's subtle but definitely tasty.