Sweet nut clusters and cereal squares are combined with salty popcorn and pretzels for this quick 10 minute recipe that is perfect for gluten-free snacking!
I’m always looking for fun and filling snacks for my family. With two growing boys, I’m often hearing “I’m hungry”! I try to have lots of fruit, nuts, yogurt, cheese sticks, and gluten-free nut or granola bars around for them to snack on after school or for a bedtime snack. They really like it when I make a homemade snack mix though!
Nature Valley sent me all 10 varieties of their new gluten-free nut bars to try out and tell you about. When I tried one of the Roasted Peanut bars, I thought it would be good in a snack mix, so I broke it up into chunks and figured out what all would go good with it. I wanted to make a mix that was a good balance of sweet and salty. In addition to the sweet nut clusters, I added Honey Nut Chex cereal, which is also gluten-free. For the salty, I added salty, buttered popcorn and gluten-free pretzel sticks. I air-popped my popcorn, but feel free to use microwave popcorn if you’d prefer. Doing so would save you even more time! As written, this takes less than 10 minutes already so it makes a great recipe to throw together for game or movie night!
After I shooed away all of the hands that were snitching handfuls of this, I bagged it up in snack bags for our nutty snack bin. I’ve posted before about our school safe snack bin. Right beside it in our pantry, I have a nutty snack bin too! My boys know the snacks in the nutty bin are for after school and in the evening. While they’re old enough to tell the difference, I appreciate having separate bins so they don’t accidentally grab a nut or peanut snack to bring to a peanut and nut-free classroom.
Here’s a peek at our nutty snack bin:
Since my kids and hubby had already snitched several handfuls of snack mix, I was able to make 9 snack size bags of the mix. I’m guessing a full batch would net closer to 11 or 12 bags.
I hope you’ll watch for these and all the other new Nature Valley gluten-free bars at your local store and grab some to make this snack mix with. We also love the nut bars alone for snacking on the go. I keep a few in my glove compartment all the time so I always have a safe snack with me.
Make sure you go enter the Nature Valley Perfect Pair Sweepstakes. You can read about it on the sweepstakes page on Facebook. By posting a photo on Instagram showing a Nature Valley gluten-free bar and another food, object, or activity that you feel pairs well with it, tagging @nature_valley and using the hashtag #NVPerfectPairSweepstakes on your public account, you get an entry! You have an easy chance to win one of 2 $500 Visa Gift Cards. I’d love for one of my readers to win! Let me know if you do so we can celebrate!
Now for the super fun and easy recipe:
- 4 cups popped, buttered, salted popcorn
- 4 Nature Valley Roasted Nut Crunch bars (I used the Peanut Crunch variety)
- 3 cups Honey Nut Chex cereal
- 1 cup gluten-free pretzel sticks
- Gently mix all together in a large bowl.
- Serve as is, or use a 3/4 cup scoop to fill snack size Ziploc bags.
- Enjoy!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Nature Valley. The opinions and text are all mine.