Homemade Chex Mix

Chex mix is the ultimate DIY snack. It’s crunchy, just the right amount of salty, and stays good for several weeks, making it the perfect thing to keep on the counter for midday or pre-dinner nibbling. Plus, our version can be made with whatever cereal, toasted nuts, and crunchy snacks you’ve stocked up on.

Many Chex mix recipes (including the original) have you simply melt some butter and pour it over the ingredients. But we firmly believe that the very best, most irresistible Chex mix is oven-baked Chex mix. Oven-baked Chex mix takes whatever mix of ingredients you’re using, tosses them in a generous amount of heavily seasoned melted butter, and bakes it in the oven until crisp and perfectly toasted. Here’s how to do it.

• Chex cereals: This recipe uses both rice and wheat varieties, but you can honestly pick whatever your favorites are. We recommend two kinds so there’s a variety of flavors, colors, and textures.
• Pretzels: Mini pretzel twists are fun and cute, but you can use sticks or snaps (square shaped) instead.
• Bagel chips: These tend to be in larger pieces, so break them up with your hands first.
• Nuts: Peanuts are used here, but you can use any kind of nut. If you want to keep it nut free, use more cereal, pretzels, or bagel chips instead.

Don’t have Chex? Use Cheerios or Crispix instead. Peanuts not your thing? Swap them out for almonds. However you riff, just be sure to keep the total volume of snacks the same to ensure that the butter mixture coats each and every piece. Here’s a helpful formula:

9 cups cereal (Chex cereal preferred, but any savory variety will work) + 1 cup nuts + 5 cups add-ins (such as pretzels, chips, or crackers)

• Butter: Use unsalted here, as there’s plenty of salt in the seasoned salt.
• Seasoned salt: This old-school seasoning has a blend of onion, garlic, spices, and salt. We like Lawry’s for Chex mix.
• Onion and garlic powders: These give the Chex mix a deeper, more savory taste.
• Worcestershire sauce: A generous amount of lends a subtle savoriness that rounds all the flavors out.

Baking Chex mix in the oven transforms it into a toastier, crunchier version of the classic, and makes the flavors of the spices pop and become bolder. Think of it like the difference between raw nuts and toasted nuts. Toasted is always better.

The trick to getting the Chex mix perfectly crisp and golden is to gently toast it at a low temperature. Our recipe calls for baking it at 250°F, which for some ovens is the lowest temperature it will go. If your oven can only go down to 275°F, that also works — just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t burn, and pull it out as soon as it gets golden. The low-and-slow bake helps the moisture in the butter evaporate so that the mix gets crispy, and it makes sure the nuts and cereal don’t burn and get bitter.

Before you head into the kitchen to make this Chex mix, keep these tips in mind:

1. Don’t skimp on the seasoning. The recipe makes a lot of Chex mix, and it can handle a lot of seasoning, so be sure to use the full amount even if it seems like a lot.
2. Toss the Chex mix with the butter in two steps. To make sure that every piece of your Chex mix is evenly coated in the butter mixture, pour half of it over the Chex mix, give it a toss, then proceed with the rest.
3. Stir the Chex mix every 15 minutes as it bakes. To make sure the Chex mix is toasting evenly, bake it on 2 baking sheets and give it a stir every 15 minutes.

While this is the traditional Chex mix recipe, there are many other ways you can riff on it to make a different sweet or savory treat:

• Oven-Baked Ranch Chex Mix
• Thanksgiving Chex Mix
• Slow-Cooker Chex Party Mix
• Honey-Mustard Snack Mix
• Christmas Chex Mix