Christmas Popcorn Crunch is an easy holiday snack recipe. Sweet and salty popcorn with white chocolate, pretzels, M&M candies, and sprinkles.
Our favorite Christmas White Chocolate Snack Mix gets a salty, crunchy popcorn twist in this sweet and festive Candy Recipe. If you’re a fan of sweet and salty popcorn like Kettle Corn, this is the Snack mix you need to try!
This is the perfect party snack for any occasion. Make this treat year-round, just swap out the candies and festive sprinkles. Try red and blue candy pieces for the Fourth of July or make rainbow Funfetti popcorn crunch mix for birthdays!
Table of contents
Sabrina’s Christmas Popcorn Crunch Recipe
It’s easy to get to the top of Santa’s nice list with this festive holiday treat! Also known as Santa Munch, all you need to make this tasty Christmas Popcorn Crunch is some popped buttery popcorn, white chocolate chips, M&M candies, pretzels, and sprinkles. It’s ready in minutes and lasts for weeks, so it’s the perfect sweet to enjoy all holiday season long.
Kids of most ages can join in the fun to help make this Christmas Popcorn Crunch so this is a great treat to keep them busy during holiday break! To prevent burns, make sure the popcorn is completely cooled before using. Always use oven mitts to handle the hot bowl to pour melted chocolate. A long handled wooden spoon is perfect for small helpers to stir everything together. White chocolate doesn’t set super quickly, so there is time to let it cool slightly before spreading onto the baking sheet.
Ingredients
- Popcorn: Christmas Popcorn Crunch can be made with fresh popped popcorn or you can use bagged popcorn to save a step. You can make homemade popcorn on the stove top (we have instructions in this post) or use the microwave kind. No matter what kind of popcorn you are using, make sure you sift out any unpopped kernels and keep in mind you’ll need 9 cups of popcorn!
- White Chocolate: The creamy vanilla flavor of white chocolate goes perfectly with the delicious candy, pretzel and popcorn mix. Although you could use regular chocolate, the white chocolate lets the festive colors stand out for a better holiday look. You’ll need 12 ounces, 1 regular size bag, of white chocolate chips.
- Pretzels: To give this crunchy salty mix even more crunchy, salty goodness we add 2 cups of mini pretzels. You can also use pretzel squares, pretzel twists or pretzel bites, just make sure they are small enough to mix evenly and so you can enjoy a little bit of everything in the mix in one bite.
- Candy: To add some regular chocolate flavor and festive holiday color, this popcorn gets a generous 1 cup of green and red M&M candies. The candy coating doesn’t famously doesn’t melt easily so it stays crispy in the white chocolate coating.
- Sprinkles: Finally, to add even more holiday flair, there is ¼ cup of green and red sprinkles. It’s best to use the long sprinkles, also called jimmies, which are the kind you’ll often see on ice cream. You could also use the little round ball sprinkles, just try not to use colored sugar sprinkles because those will get soaked up into the chocolate and won’t have that same pop.
Kitchen Tools & Equipment
- Large Bowl: 9 cups of popcorn is a lot and you want to make this all at once if you can so everything gets coated and distributed evenly, so an extra big chef’s mixing bowl is a great tool to use. If you can’t find them at the store, check out a restaurant supply store. These huge metal bowls are also great for making crowd-size pasta and potato salads so they are worth the investment if you do a lot of big-batch cooking.
- Long Wooden Spoon: This recipe is quite a big batch of ingredients so a long-handled wooden spoon works best to get down the bottom of your bowl and the firm handle makes stirring easier. Also, the hard wooden spoon is good for scraping the sides of the bowl.
How to Make Christmas Popcorn Crunch
Time needed: 30 minutes
- Prep Work
Line 2 baking sheets with wax paper or parchment paper. Add your popcorn and pretzels to an extra large mixing bowl.
- Melt the Chocolate
In a microwave safe bowl, melt the chocolate in 30 second bursts, stirring in between each time, until melted and smooth.
- Coat the Ingredients
In a large bowl, stir your popcorn and pretzels a little to mix slightly, then pour most of the white chocolate over the mix. Add the M&M candies to the bowl and toss everything until it’s well coated.
- Decorate and Cool
Spread the popcorn mixture over your prepared baking sheets in even layers, avoiding big clumps as much as you can. Top with the remaining chocolate, drizzling over the top. Decorate with the sprinkles.
- Serve and Store
Once it’s cooled, break apart gently and serve in a decorative bowl or place in a plastic storage bag and keep for up to 2 weeks at room temperature.
Nutritional Facts
Sides for Your Christmas Popcorn Crunch
Drinks: Pair this festive fun snack with equally fun and festive holiday drinks like Peppermint Hot Chocolate or Holiday Apple Cider. Have some of this salty carb-loaded snack on hand at adult events to help soak up the bourbon or brandy in their Eggnog.
Popcorn: Switch up the flavors of popcorn and try this recipe with Kettle Corn for an extra sweet treat or use Cheddar Popcorn for a savory, salty layer of flavor. This is a great recipe to use up the cheddar and butter flavor popcorn in those holiday popcorn tins, just skip the caramel corn because that would be too sweet.
How to Store Christmas Popcorn Crunch
Serve: Let Christmas Popcorn Crunch cool completely so white chocolate is set. Once set, break crunch mix into pieces and keep in a sealed plastic bag at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.
Store: Store Christmas Popcorn Crunch in the refrigerator for up to 1 month in a sealed plastic bag or airtight container. Bring to room temperature to serve.
Freeze: Once cooled and set, transfer Christmas Popcorn Crunch pieces to a freezer safe storage bag and squeeze out any air. Freeze for up to 6 months and thaw at room temperature to serve.
Ideas to Serve Christmas Popcorn Crunch
Switch up the Mix-ins: Other festive sweets to mix-in are crushed candy canes, peppermint M&Ms, or other small red and green candy. Try adding other snack mix-ins like mini marshmallows, Reese’s Pieces, crushed Oreo cookies, chopped nuts, or dried fruit. You can add up to about 1 cup total extra mix-ins before you made need more melted white chocolate.
Gifting this Treat: Christmas Popcorn Crunch makes a fun holiday snack but it’s also fantastic as an easy gift idea. Just wrap it up in festive cellophane or treat bags and add ribbons or other holiday decorations. You want to keep it in plastic, not paper, so that it stays crunchy and fresh longer.
Easy Stove Top Popcorn Recipe
- In a large, heavy bottom pot, add 2 teaspoons vegetable oil (or olive oil) and 2 unpopped kernels.
- Heat, covered, over medium high heat until kernels have popped, then add ¼ cup popcorn kernels.
- Shake kernels until covered in oil and cover pot.
- Shake occasionally while popcorn pops.
- Once there is a 2-3 second gap between pops, your popcorn is ready.
Frequent Questions
Instead of white chocolate chips, you can use vanilla almond bark, or white chocolate melts. For a more festive look, use colored candy melts to drizzle over the prepared Christmas Popcorn Crunch.
Of course! Easily switch up the candy, the color of the sprinkles and even the pretzels to make this for other holidays. For example, on Valentine’s Day, make this sweet treat with mini cinnamon heart candy and use red and pink sprinkles!
The white chocolate lets the festive sweets in this holiday popcorn mix stand out, but you can always use dark chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, or other baking chips for different flavors.
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 9 cups popped popcorn
- 12 ounces White Chocolate Chips
- 2 cups mini pretzels
- 1 cup green and red M&M candies
- 1/4 cup green and red sprinkles , jimmies
Instructions
- Melt white chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in 30 second increments until fully melted.
- Drizzle most of the white chocolate over popped popcorn and mini pretzels in a large bowl.
- Add in M&M candies and toss.
- Spread onto 2 baking sheets lined with wax paper as spread apart as possible to avoid large clumps.
- Drizzle the remaining white chocolate on top of the popcorn and sprinkle on the green and red jimmies
- Let set then break apart gently.
Nutrition
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So good! This was really easy to make, it looked great, it tasted awesome and it was a total hit. I am looking forward to changing this up with different seasonal M&Ms. Next year I will make it and put it in smaller bags to give as gifts.