The best cheesy popcorn brands — and the rest

A bowl of popcorn is great snack. So is a slice of cheese. Put those two together in a single salty, tangy bite, and it’s a lick-your-fingers delicious, movie-night snack that almost qualifies as healthy.

Popcorn is loaded with fiber and generally lower in fat and calories than many bagged snacks. The problem, of course, is that cheesy popcorn is often greasy, salty and laced with artificial colors, flavors and preservatives.

To find out which cheese-flavored popcorns deliver cheesy goodness, we munched through nine bags, looking for perfection. The best options start with tender, crisp, freshly popped kernels that are then dusted with just enough top- quality cheese powder to deliver true cheese flavor — without overpowering the taste of the popcorn. In general, the most delicious are those with the shortest lists of ingredients.

Sadly, bad cheesy popcorn is what fills most bags on store shelves. Many fail to deliver the flavor of cheese, but the worst are salty, stale, chemical-flavored bites that are every kind of bad.

Here’s the scoop on the tastiest brands of cheese-flavored popcorn — and the ones you should avoid. Nutrition details refer to a 28gram serving, which is 2½ to 3 cups of popcorn.

Smartfood White Cheddar Popcorn

Generous cheese, plus an acidic kick of buttermilk, make for a bold snack that hits all the right notes. This is easily the cheesiest popcorn on the shelf. 160 calories, 10 g fat, 240 mg sodium, 2 g sugar, 4 g protein. $3.50 for 6.75 ounces at Safeway. ★★★★