Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Anytime (or holiday) Chex Party Mix

It's an age old holiday treat... seasoned Chex Mix. I've tried many recipes and feel I've finally perfected one that everyone seems to love. The thing is, you can make your own best or favorite too. Feel free to get creative and experiment to find your own personal favorite mix! Here is the one I make that my friends usually ask me for.


But let's talk about a few of these ingredients first. CHEX CEREAL... the rice, (while gluten free) is really fragile and breaks apart very easily. Corn chex is also gluten free (if that matters), and sometimes you can find a honey corn Chex - the sweetness of it usually adds a nice compliment to the spicy. I usually use half or less of the honey corn version. Wheat chex is the most hearty of all, an absorbs the most seasoning, though not gluten free.

NUTS - pick your favorites, the seasoning coats them pretty nicely and you can make your own special blend of what you like best.

PRETZELS - The square kind I like the best, it seems to grab the most seasoning flavor, but the regular twist kind work fine too. I don't find that the sticks are very user friendly.

JALEPENO PRETZEL PIECES - I don't usually add these to the mix that gets seasoning added to it, it has enough flavor on it's own.

CHEEZ IT's - I usually add these to the mix that gets the flavor, even though they have enough good flavor of their own. You can choose to add seasoning or leave them be. They absorb the seasoning mix well so I add them.

CHEETOS - I don't add them to the part that needs seasoning, they are plenty flavorful all their own. I like to use the jalepeno cheetos.

THE SEASONING MIX: I usually use one full batch and another half batch to coat what I want seasoned. And I don't follow a recipe exactly, I sometimes just "eyeball" how much of each "looks right" for my mix. This will make two large rectangles containers full. You have to decide how much you want to use, based on how strong you want it to be. There are some ingredients I don't throw into the mixture until the rest is out of the oven.

So here you go:
3 C corn chex
2 C honey corn chex
3 C wheat chex
1 C or 1 medium can of nuts
1/2 - 3/4 bag of pretzels
1 box Hot N Spicy Cheez Its

8 TB butter
2 TB Worchestershire
1 TB soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp Season salt (Lowry's)
1 tsp garlic powder or salt
1/2 tsp onion powder

Melt the butter in a microwave safe dish, stir in the seasonings. Pour over parts of the above that will fit in a large roaster or electric skillet. I use my electric skillet to stir and coat the mixture. Then I put in shallow cookie or bar pans or a roaster to bake. Bake at 250 for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Once it's done, I add the following ingredients to take it up a notch:

1 bag jalepeno pretzel bits
1 bag jalepeno Cheetos

So that's it, I hope you feel inspired to make your own special mix or even copy mine.

Kodi