Sweet and spicy snack mix–a delightful blend of pretzels, honey roasted peanuts, cheese crackers, cereal, and dried cranberries. Everyone will love this addictive snack!
As much as I would have liked to, this is just not the year to make alllll the Christmas treats. Traveling, sickness, having a toddler, working… spending hours and hours making a bunch of Christmas recipes just wasn’t going to happen this year. And while that IS a bummer, I’m trying to make the best of it and maybe even make some of my faves after Christmas or at other times of the year. One of the ways I decided to “make the best of it” was to use a couple gift-giving occasions to try new recipes! I chose super easy recipes to make this as low-stress as possible.
As some of you may know, I’m an academic librarian. We have great student workers in our library, and we like to celebrate them when we can. For their Christmas gift this year, I was tempted to buy some candy and call it a day, but instead I bought a few easy ingredients at Aldi (my new grocery love! Look for more about Aldi in a new meal planning series I’m starting on my blog in 2018!!) to whip up this easy snack mix. It’s similar to Chex Mix, but with a great sweet and spicy kick.
My son and I made this together on a rainy Sunday afternoon and it took maybe 10 minutes to mix and measure everything (and that’s with a toddler helping!!). The vast majority of the hour-long prep time is for baking. If you’re packaging this up in cute little treat bags like I did, you’ll need to allow extra time for cooling. But if not, this is a super quick snack that is fun to make and even better to eat. It’s a little weird but I love eating hot snack mix, fresh out of the oven. No idea why, because who eats hot cereal, pretzels, or crackers? Ha. Ben and I were so sad to give almost all of this away but at least it’s easy enough to make another batch. I might have to do that again soon! Enjoy! 🙂
one year ago: Hassleback Pork Tenderloin Stuffed with Cranberries, Pears, and Goat Cheese
two years ago: Cranberry Crumb Bars
three years ago: Art Smith’s Macaroni and Cheese
four years ago: Cranberry-Pistachio Citrus Butter Cookies
five years ago: Streuseled Cran-Apple Sweet Potato Casserole
six years ago: Cranberry-Pineapple Sauce
seven years ago: Peppermint Sugar Cookies
Sweet and Spicy Pretzel Snack Mix
adapted from The Lean Green Bean
Ingredients:
- 16 ounce bag mini pretzels
- 16 ounces honey roasted peanuts
- 1 box cheese crackers (like Cheez-Its, approximately 13.7 ounces)
- 6 cups rice or corn Chex cereal (about half of a 12-13 ounce box)
- 2 cups Cheerios cereal
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1/2 cup canola oil (or an extra 4 tablespoons butter)
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 3 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons paprika
- 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 cups dried cranberries
Directions:
Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
In a large roasting pan, combine pretzels, peanuts, cheese crackers, Chex, and Cheerios.
In a small bowl, whisk together melted butter, canola oil, and honey. Stir in brown sugar, paprika, cayenne, and garlic powder.
Pour over pretzel mixture, and stir until evenly coated.
Bake for 45 minutes, tossing every 15 minutes.
Allow to cool completely before stirring in dried cranberries.
The Pajama Chef 