Salty and buttery popcorn makes a tasty treat, but soggy popcorn won’t do. There are a few tricks to keep your homemade popcorn crispy and crunchy and they all revolve around what you add to your popcorn. Because margarine has a high water content, it will immediately turn your popcorn into a soggy mess when you add it. So keep it real and skip the margarine. Drizzle real clarified butter over your popcorn and it will stay tasty and crunchy.
Add the butter to the saucepan.
Place the saucepan onto the stovetop and turn the burner on low.
Watch the butter as it melts. You should see it become frothy and foamy on the top as the milk solids rise to the top of the melted butter.
Melt the butter until it liquefies completely and then continue to cook it for two or three minutes while additional milk solids rise to the top of the melted butter.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and use a spoon to remove the milk solids floating on the top of the butter.
Leave the butter cooling at room temperature for about 10 minutes while additional milk solids sink to the bottom of the saucepan.
Pour off the clarified butter into a different container. As you pour, be careful not to pour the milk solids on the bottom of the saucepan. Stop pouring the clarified butter before you come to the milk solids and then discard the milk solids.
Drizzle the clarified butter over the popcorn. Because you clarified the butter, you removed water and milk solids from the butter and all that remains is the clarified butter. This means that the butter will not make the popcorn soggy and instead it will remain crispy and crunchy.