A popcorn bar is a great food bar idea for a Halloween party!
Many of you have seen my popcorn bar! It’s always a hit. I created it for our daughter’s graduation party. I’ve also used it at an Oscars party. Last week I decided to pull it out for a Halloween party. Now that I have all the main components, it’s super easy to seasonalize it for any kind of party. And a popcorn bar is a great party food for a crowd.
At the bottom of this post, I’ll link to my YouTube video for the full tutorial on the popcorn bar I made for our graduation party. I’ll also link to the graduation popcorn bar post.
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I just finished creating a special store front on Amazon with a list of my favorite popcorn bar essentials. Check it out here!!!
How the popcorn bar works
- Snag a bag (an empty bag for popcorn).
- Scoop popcorn into the bag.
- Spritz on the butter spray.
- Sprinkle a seasoning and some toppings on the popcorn.
- Shake the bag to mix the toppings and seasonings with the popcorn.
- Snack & enjoy.
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR POPCORN BAR
Decide on the overall look of your Popcorn Bar. You’ll see popcorn bars take on all types of styles when you look at photos on Pinterest. Decide which one has the look you’re going for. I found one that I love and invested in the Popcorn Bar sign kit when we did our graduation party. It was worth every penny! And I continue to use these shakers for all kinds of parties. Click here to see the kit that I purchased on Etsy.
Pick your seasonings.
I recommend picking a few savory/salty flavors and a few sweet ones. I used Kernel Season’s Popcorn seasoning. They have so many flavors. You can usually find a few flavors in the popcorn aisle of your local grocery store; however, a wider range of options is available on Amazon.
You’ll also want to get a can of butter spritzer. This is what makes the seasonings stick to the popcorn. Your guests will spray the popcorn and then sprinkle the seasoning on top.
Kernel Season’s Popcorn seasoning on Amazon
Put seasonings into shakers and label them.
Obviously this step is optional. I did this for our grad party, so it was worth it. If you’re just doing a popcorn bar for Halloween, you could probably just stick with the Kernel Seasons shakers. The Kernel Seasons shakers (shown above) are pretty cute. However, you might consider using other shakers if you’re hosting a popcorn bar at an event where the look of the bar is as important as the taste of the popcorn. The popcorn graphic kit (linked above) included dozens of seasoning label options that can be used on basic salt & pepper shakers.
I purchased this box of shakers from Amazon for very cheap. Check out the details of the shakers here.
The digital kit I purchased (linked above) contains over 40 labels. These gave me a lot of ideas for which seasonings I wanted to use.
I printed the labels on a sheet of Avery stickers (1 giant 8.5×11 sticker).
Once I picked the seasonings that I planned to use, I cut the sticker and adhered it to the shaker jar. You can laminate a card stock version and use double stick tape to adhere the label.
I used a funnel to avoid a mess when I moved my seasonings over to my jars. I filled up the shaker and still had quite a bit left in the original shakers.
They look so cute!
Prepare your toppings
The most fun part of a popcorn bar is picking the seasoning and the topping. And there are so many topping ideas! The digital kit that I bought had topping labels for over 85 topping labels.
For our Halloween Party, I just picked some popular toppings. I forgot to take the picture before people filled up their bags, so some of my bowls are running low.
I recommend going with small containers because it lets you keep a full look throughout the party. Just have someone to fill toppings as needed. I used these really cute little bowls with skeletons, which are perfect for Halloween!
I often use these cute small galvanized buckets on Amazon for popcorn toppings.. I thinktthe price is very reasonable. If you use galvanized buckets, line them with a lunch bag. You can use brown or white. You can find both colors at Walmart. See my popcorn bar blog post that shows how to decorate these in a very cute way.
Once I picked my toppings, I laminated the small topping labels from my digital sign kit (it was printed on card stock) using self-seal laminating sheets.
And then I attached the topping label to a tall Popsicle stick.
These sticks will go right into the bowl of toppings.
I love these darling scoops that I found on Amazon. I like that they are small because it will help control portions a little bit. Here they are if you’re interested in checking them out. People LOVE these scoops and always ask where I found them.
I picked up this little sign from a craft store half price and attached my Popcorn Toppings label from my digital kit to it.
Links to my Halloween popcorn bar components:
Popcorn Bar Digital Signs
Popcorn seasonings
Galvanized metal pails
5 round gallon metal tub
5.5 oval gallon metal tub
Bar ice scoops
Mini wood scoops
Salt & Pepper shakers
In the videos below, I share how I put my graduation popcorn bar together and I’ll provide links below to help you see where I made my purchases. I have linked two videos, one just shows the popcorn bar (the short video) and the other shows how I created it.
I hope you found information about the creation of my Halloween popcorn bar inspiring and helpful. It truly was a lot of fun!
If you’re looking for other Halloween party food, see my other Halloween posts below.