Easy Marshmallow Popcorn Balls For Halloween
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Looking for a fun and spooky treat to make with the kiddos this Halloween? Well, today I bring you an easy and super cute recipe for Halloween Popcorn Balls! Made with popcorn, mini marshmallows, ghoulish candies, and colorful sprinkles, this no bake treat comes together in a snap and the kids will love decorating them!
These are perfect for a fun treat to give out to friends and family at a Halloween party or for snacking on while watching your favorite scary movie!
Why You’ll Love This Popcorn Ball Recipe
- This is a no bake recipe, with no candy making experience needed! It’s like making Halloween Rice Krispies Treats!
- These popcorn balls are a fun Halloween activity to make with the kids and grandkids!
- This recipe is versatile to meet the needs of your family. They can be easily customized to be gluten-free, dairy free, and allergen free!
- Popcorn balls can be customized for anytime of year! Swap the candies and decorations for Easter, Christmas, or St. Patrick’s Day! They also make a super fun gift to give to friends!
If you need more ideas, I have a whole post of Children’s Halloween Snacks on the blog. I promise everyone will love them!
Makes 16-18 popcorn balls
Ingredients for Popcorn Balls
- 10 cups of popped popcorn (homemade popcorn* or store bought is fine)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt (use for unsalted popcorn)
- 10 oz of Mini Marshmallows (5 1/2 cups)
- 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 5- 6oz of Halloween themed sprinkles
- 1 cup of Halloween colored M&Ms, plus more for decorating
*If you’re popping your popcorn on the stovetop, you’ll need 2/3 cup of kernels and 3 tablespoons of olive or vegetable oil. Here are instructions for making stovetop popcorn if you need them!
How to Make Halloween Popcorn Balls
Place your M&Ms into the freezer and then line a sheet pan with wax or parchment paper. Set the sheet pan aside.
Add 10 cups of popcorn to a large bowl. If your popcorn is unsalted, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.
In a 2 quart or larger saucepan, melt butter over medium high heat.
Once melted, reduce the heat to medium and add the mini marshmallows.
Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the marshmallows are just melted. Do not boil.
Remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour the melted marshmallow mixture over the popcorn.
Use a rubber spatula to stir and coat the popcorn in the marshmallow goo evenly.
Pour the mixture out onto the parchment paper lined sheet pan. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, going from hot to warm, the mixture should still be quite sticky.
Grab your M&Ms from the freezer and sprinkle evenly over the sticky popcorn mixture.
Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and then scoop out portions the size of a heaping 1/3 cup.
Mold the scoops of popcorn and M&Ms into neat balls. Compress the popcorn balls tightly so that they keep their shape. It’s natural for the M&M’s to break lightly or get a little melty during this process, totally ok!
Next, pour the Halloween sprinkles into a small bowl and roll each popcorn ball in the sprinkles, pressing down lightly to adhere. Shake off any spots with too many sprinkles. At this point you can also press additional M&M’s onto the outside of each ball or additional edible Halloween decorations. Repeat this process until all popcorn balls are sufficiently decorated.
Serve the popcorn balls immediately or package for handing out.
Tips and Tricks
Making popcorn balls is pretty straight forward, but here are some tips for helping the popcorn balls keep their shape as well as adding mix-ins into the mixture.
- Popcorn balls will keep their shape best if formed after cooling to room temperature.
- Spray hands with cooking spray or a little water before forming the popcorn balls.
- I recommend freezing your M&Ms before adding them to the popcorn mixture. The M&Ms are added while the popcorn and marshmallows are still warm and sticky, and the freezing will help the candy to not melt as quickly. Some definitely will anyway, but the freezing process will help keep the popcorn balls a little neater.
- Press the sprinkles lightly onto the outside of each popcorn ball when rolling. The exterior of the popcorn ball loses some of it’s tackiness in the forming and cooling stages, so for best results, pressing the sprinkles onto the outside of each ball helps them to stay put.
- You can always press on more candy or sprinkles to the outside of the ball to make them as customized as you want!
Halloween Popcorn Ball Variations
- Popcorn Options: You can make your own air-popped popcorn, microwave popcorn, or storebought (that’s what I used). Switch up the flavors by using caramel corn or kettle corn in place of plain salted popcorn.
- Swap the M&M’s for another candy like candy corn, chopped peanut butter cups, Reese’s Pieces, Skittles, or a different flavor M&M! The sky is the limit for the mix-ins you want to add!
- Add food coloring to the marshmallow mixture before stirring it into the popcorn. Purple, orange, and green would work nicely!
- Drizzle with white chocolate or colored vanilla candy melts for extra spooky decorations
How to Store Marshmallow Popcorn Balls
Leftover popcorn balls need to be tightly wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
These are best eaten the day they are made, but if stored properly, will last 3-4 days. I do not recommend freezing these.
Halloween Popcorn Balls FAQs
This recipe makes about 16-18 popcorn balls when they’re scooped around 1/3 cup size. But can easily be scaled up or down.
This recipe combines salty popcorn (homemade or storebought is fine), butter, a bag of mini marshmallows, Mu0026Ms, and colorful sprinkles.
Old fashioned popcorn balls are typically made with fresh popcorn and a cooked binding syrup of sugar, butter, and corn syrup.
For simplicity’s sake, I opted for the marshmallow mixture. There’s no candy thermometer, or boiling hot sugar in a large saucepan required.
I like to use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to make a heaping scoop. These treats are pretty rich, so it’s a good sized ball for little hands. And perfect for adults who want to eat 2, 3…4 in a sitting.
But feel free to make them any size you want! They’re totally customizable.
There may not have been enough of the marshmallow goo to glue all the popcorn together.
The mixture was too hot when forming the popcorn balls. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature before forming the balls, this helps the popcorn balls keep their shape. If the balls are formed while the mixture is still warm, they tend to fall apart. But that’s ok! Just reform them when they cool down.
Don’t add too many mix-ins to the popcorn mixture, this will interfere with the marshmallow mixture gluing the popcorn pieces together. Add extra Halloween candy or decorations to the outside of the popcorn balls after forming.
More Halloween Treats On the Blog
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Easy Marshmallow Popcorn Balls for Halloween
Ingredients
- 10 cups of popcorn homemade popcorn* or store bought is fine
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt use for unsalted popcorn
- 10 oz of Mini Marshmallows 5 1/2 cups
- 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 5- 6 oz of Halloween themed sprinkles
- 1 cup of Halloween colored M&Ms plus more for decorating
Instructions
- Place your M&Ms into the freezer and then line a sheet pan with wax or parchment paper. Set the sheet pan aside.
- Add 10 cups of popcorn to a large mixing bowl. If your popcorn is unsalted, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of kosher salt.
- In a 2 quart or larger saucepan, melt the butter over medium high heat.
- Once melted, reduce the heat to medium and add the mini marshmallows. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the marshmallows are just melted. Do not boil.
- Remove the pan from the heat and immediately pour the marshmallow mixture over the popcorn.
- Use a rubber spatula to mix and coat the popcorn in the marshmallow goo evenly.
- Pour the mixture out onto the parchment paper lined sheet pan. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, going from hot to warm, the mixture should still be quite sticky.
- Grab your M&Ms from the freezer and sprinkle evenly over the sticky popcorn mixture.
- Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and then scoop out portions the size of a heaping 1/3 cup.
- Mold the scoops of popcorn and M&Ms into neat balls. Compress the popcorn balls tightly so that they keep their shape. It’s natural for the M&M’s to break lightly or get a little melty during this process, totally ok!
- Next, pour the Halloween sprinkles into a small bowl and roll each popcorn ball in the sprinkles, pressing down lightly to adhere. Shake off any spots with too many sprinkles. At this point you can also press additional M&M’s onto the outside of each ball or additional edible Halloween decorations. Repeat this process until all popcorn balls are sufficiently decorated.
- Serve the popcorn balls immediately or package for handing out.
These popcorn balls were very easy to make the M&M didn’t melt my grandkids loved them ages 30 to 4 yrs old. They’re waiting for me to make more for a Halloween party.