This 1-Ingredient Popcorn Upgrade Brings the Theater to Your Home

We come to AMC Theatres to laugh, to cry, and for me, to snack. As a proud member of AMC A-List (ever since MoviePass faded into history), I always look forward to the feature film and, more importantly, the nacho cheese-flavored popcorn.

There’s something irresistible about the combination of buttery richness and salty, cheesy zing. One bite, and your taste buds are begging for more. That flavor has become my gold standard for popcorn. Naturally, as a self-proclaimed popcorn connoisseur, I’ve spent years trying to recreate it at home.

After many trials (and a few regrettable combos), I’ve landed on one simple ingredient that transforms a bag of microwaved popcorn: nutritional yeast.

How to Add Nutritional Yeast to Popcorn

Nutritional yeast brings that signature savory, cheesy flavor without needing hard-to-find dehydrated cheese powders. Even better, it delivers that umami richness without the saltiness of real cheese, giving you control over the seasoning. You can use it on lightly salted or fully salted popcorn and still get that perfect balance.

But the secret to this upgrade isn’t just the ingredient—it’s also the technique.

After microwaving the popcorn according to the package instructions (yes, follow them exactly for the best results), I like to immediately sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast into the bag through the small opening at the top. Be careful when doing this—steam will escape, so it might be a little hot to handle.

Then, cinch the bag shut and shake vigorously for about 30 seconds, which is about the amount of time and patience that I am willing to spare before inhaling this popcorn by the fistful. The heat, butter, and residual steam help the nutritional yeast stick, evenly coating each kernel in cheesy goodness.

This method works best with extra buttery popcorn (more butter equals more sticking power), but it also works well with light butter. If you’re using non-buttered popcorn, the yeast may not stick as easily, and you might see some of it settling at the bottom of the bag.

Either way, sprinkling on some nutritional yeast adds great flavor. Now you just need to pick the feature film to go with it.