9 LesserEvil Popcorn Flavors, Ranked

If you're in the mood for popcorn, you should get your hands on LesserEvil. The brand focuses on organic popcorn in a range of flavors, but it also offers eats like Moonions, which are crunchy, onion-flavored corn rings, and Cheezmos, which are cheesy corn puffs. I tried out nine of the company's popcorn varieties to see which is worth the space in your pantry. I must say, they're all flavorful and enticing. If you placed a bag in front of me, I'd happily eat half of it in one go. Therefore, I really had to get nitty-gritty about how I was going to rank these.

Ultimately, I decided to judge them on the overall flavor intrigue, how well the flavor works, and how crave-worthy they are. Which one had me scooping my hand into the bag and shoveling popcorn in my mouth? My top pick did exactly that, and while the rest are totally tasty, I didn't eat as much of them. Either way, you butter be ready to get snacking.

Some recommendations are based on firsthand impressions of promotional materials and products provided by the manufacturer.

Avocado-licious is the plainest, most unadulterated popcorn flavor of these nine. If you want just regular-tasting popcorn, then this is the option for you. It's made simply with popcorn, avocado oil, coconut oil, and Himalayan salt. Because avocado is added, the coconut oil doesn't impart as strong a flavor. This tastes like salted popcorn, which makes it an approachable option if you want to add your own popcorn seasonings for movie night. 

If you don't want to make popcorn from scratch, Avocado-licious is the next best thing, thanks to its buildability. Everything else is more flavored, which may appeal to certain taste buds. But then again, for this ranking, I'm looking for a punch of flavor, so this avocado-infused option comes in at ninth place despite being perfectly edible.

The Oh Em Ghee! popcorn has fewer ingredients than the previous — just popcorn, organic ghee, and Himalayan salt. However, since it is made with ghee, which is clarified butter, it has a mild buttery note. Out of all the LesserEvil options, the Oh Em Ghee! brings forth authentic buttered popcorn flavor. It's the perfect balance of rich, familiar butter and salt without being overwhelming. It's as though you poured your own butter over homemade popcorn. 

It's a familiar combination, but it works. Since it's a little bit more captivating than the salted variety, it gets a slightly higher ranking. If you want the purest, closest-to-homemade buttered popcorn without the effort of making it at home, get this one. You could always enhance the flavor with added melted butter, mini chocolate chips, or something savory like pretzels. Oh Em Ghee! is the easiest flavor to adapt since you could elevate it with sweet or savory inclusions.

Despite the fiery name, this flavor is somewhat tepid. Compared to the previous two flavors, the Fiery Hot! has a laundry list of seasonings, including popcorn, coconut oil, sea salt, red bell pepper powder, white distilled vinegar, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, habanero pepper, and more. As long as the list is, this is still relatively mild-flavored than I anticipated. It has a lick of heat to offer dimension compared to ghee or straight salted options before it, but it's not overwhelming. 

I was actually hoping for more spice. If it had that, it would probably go up a couple of notches in the ranking. It's a satisfactory flavor, but I prefer the next one a bit more. Bust this flavor out when you want something that goes beyond salty or cheesy notes, as it's the biggest outlier among the nine I tried in terms of seasonings (aside from my top flavor).

LesserEvil's White Cheddar flavor is reminiscent of those tin canisters laden with cheesy popcorn. You know the ones that you could smell from a mile away? This reminds me of those and therefore carries an air of nostalgia. This white cheddar variety uses coconut oil, rice flour, yeast extract, "butter-type flavor," and organic flavor, among other ingredients. It is dairy-free, though, which makes it a good option for those who want something cheesy without the lactose. This item used to be called "No Cheese" Cheesiness, and it ranked No. 14 in our round-up of bagged popcorn flavors. 

The cheesiness brings the most intrigue out of everything so far. While the Fiery Hot! has more seasonings, the White Cheddar seems to work better, taste better, and generally seems cheesier than the Fiery one is fiery, if that makes sense. That said, it isn't nearly as pungent as those tin cheesy popcorns, so this LesserEveil option is probably better to bring to someone's house so it doesn't stink like feet. This flavor is great to pack for a savory snack.

Alright, now we're getting somewhere. Garlic Parmesan, formerly called Homer's Blend, is exactly what it says it's going to be. It's delightfully savory, with the cheesy, nutty notes of Parmesan coming in strongest, followed by the garlic essence. Both of the ingredients have some fragrance as well. This is the most captivating and potent flavor of the batch so far. The popcorn gets its flavor from ingredients like onion and garlic powder, nutritional yeast, and organic flavor and spices. 

It's perfect for anyone seeking a seasoned popcorn that goes beyond the cheddar that I was just talking about. This is considerably more nuanced and complex, making it terrific to serve at a function where you want basic (popcorn) to meet elevated (garlic and Parmesan). I received the old packaging, but the website shows that it's now under a new Garlic Parmesan name. Homer's Blend is a cutesy name, but the new title makes it clear what you're going to get without having to do any digging. This delivers the titular flavors and adds intrigue with the garlic compared to the cheddar-only variety.

I struck gold with this flavor. The Himalayan Gold is the butteriest of the options I tried. If you're seeking something that replicates movie theater popcorn, then there's no other choice but this one. This popcorn is relatively simple with the classic popcorn, coconut oil, and Himalayan salt trio, but here we also see an organic butter-type flavor that brings a mega-buttery note. This is like the Oh Em Gee! times 10. 

It's considerably more buttery but not in an authentic butter way. Instead, it has that movie theater popcorn quality. It's not quite as artificial as you get at the movie theater, considering it's lacking that extreme yellow hue. LesserEvil offers us butteriness with its organic flavoring instead. The butteriness permeates every bite, making it extremely flavorful despite being so traditional. There's no other choice: If you're having a movie night, you have to bring Himalayan Gold to the function. I like the rich flavor to give it a boost over the Garlic Parmesan; plus, I'd be more likely to eat fistfuls of buttery popcorn.

Somehow, we're working our way up to some classics, but they come with upgrades to set them apart. In this case, the Himalayan Pink Salt flavor goes beyond just salted popcorn. Here, you can really taste the coconut flavor of the coconut oil. Despite many others on this list also containing coconut oil, their respective strong flavors detract from the coconut taste. This time around, the popcorn tastes like salted coconut, and I love it. 

It has dimensions beyond just the salted Avocado-licious that enticed me to come back for handful after handful. This option is well-made, and while it goes back to basics, it still has a bit of oomph that keeps it memorable. That coconut flavor sets it apart from your classic salted variety. The coconut note comes across as unique and impressive, giving it a flavor unlike most popcorns I've tried, not just the ones on this list. It isn't so in-your-face and overwhelming as if you added desiccated coconut, but it's there, lingering after every bite — and it's great! Try mixing in some glazed nuts for a sweet and salty combination.

What makes the Real Organic Cheddar flavor different from the White Cheddar? Well, frankly, it's all in the name: It has a deeper, cheesier, more authentic flavor. And that's exactly what I'm looking for in this ranking. The popcorn has to have a noticeable flavor to rank higher on this list, and this cheddar variety does so well. This version uses a white cheddar seasoning made with ingredients like buttermilk, sea salt, and cheddar cheese, among others. 

In this case, we have actual dairy products popping up in the ingredients list: cheddar cheese, skim milk, and buttermilk, which offer that creamy dairy flavor. I like that it has a true cheesy taste rather than seeming artificial; I'm not sure if I'd specifically pick up that it is cheddar (is it white cheddar or yellow? White, I'd assume), but it's cheesy for sure. It's scrumptious enough to beat out the Himalayan Pink Salt as my runner-up favorite.

If you're a fan of kettle corn, that is the flavor profile Himalayan Sweetness offers, and I could not stop eating it. I literally stuffed my hand in the bag repeatedly to enjoy more. Despite how large the bag is, it's only 4.5 servings; I definitely had at least two. The sweetness comes from raw cane sugar and brown rice syrup. In addition, I catch a whiff of coconut from the extra-virgin coconut oil. The popcorn is sweet, but not cloying, which is a hard line to balance. 

Plus, this is the only bag with a slightly different popped-kernel shape; occasionally, the kernel was larger and more rounded, with a slightly darker hue — this different kernel is one of the key factors that set kettle corn apart from regular popcorn, by the way. This aspect doesn't exactly factor into why I rate this so high, but I thought it was interesting. 

Himalayan Sweetness was the top bag I kept coming back to, and therefore, it deserves the top spot. To me, it's the most crave-worthy and the easiest to eat. If I had to pick any of the nine flavors to bring as a host gift or offer up at a potluck, it would be this one. And because of that, I would love to see some other sweet options from LesserEvil.

I liked all nine popcorn varieties I tried, so I needed a specific criterion to judge them by. I decided to focus on the most interesting, well-made options, and the most snackable options. You'll see that more flavorful, balanced, elevated varieties ranked higher, whereas milder flavors ranked lower. 

The textures and appearance are mostly the same, except where noted, so this isn't factored in. I tried all the bags multiple times to get a feel of how the flavors develop on the tongue. I tested them side by side to better understand how different each bag tastes, even though they have somewhat similar ingredients.