Here's my recipe for the classic chex party mix, which we made at the holidays but makes for great snacking during the Super Bowl.
My Chex Party Mix (aka Nuts & Bolts)
The seasoned mix of cereals, pretzels and nuts.
Ingredients
- 4 cups bite-sized shredded wheat
- 5 cups corn Chex
- 4 cups Fritos
- 2 cups pretzel sticks
- 1 pound mixed nuts (1 large can)
- 1 cup peanuts
- 6 ounces butter
- ½ cup vegetable or canola oil
- 2 to 4 tbsp Worcestershire sauce (I like the full 4 tablespoons, but this is to taste)
- 1 tbsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp onion powder
- juice from ½ lemon
Instructions
- Turn your oven to 250˚F.
- In a roasting pan, combine the shredded wheat, Chex, Fritos, pretzels, and nuts. Toss to combine.
- combine the remaining ingredients in a sauce pan, and bring to a simmer. When the butter has melted, stir the pot well, then drizzle the mixture over the cereals, tossing as you do, and stopping to stir the pot frequently so the onion and garlic powders don't settle on the bottom. The idea is to get everything uniformly coated with the mixture.
- Put the roasting pan in the oven and cook for 90 minutes, stirring and tossing thoroughly every 15 minutes or so.
- Remove form the oven and allow to cool completely. Store in an air tight container.
I love the volume of nuts you use! Our family recipe is also called "nuts and bolts" and I've been trying to recreate it as my mom passed several years ago and we can't find the recipe. Why is it always the most treasured recipes get lost? I think I've finally nailed it though. We only make it at Christmastime so I only made one or two batches for my small pod in 2020 but we're going to really celebrate Christmas when we can do it safely with the larger family so I'll be able to get more feedback then.
would love to know your proportions for the butter and seasonings mixture!
This was the hardest part to figure out! Finally settled on:
1.5 cups butter
2/3 cup Worcheshire sauce
2 tbsp garlic powder
1.5 tbsp onion powder
1.5 tbsp celery seed
This goes over a 16 cup (or so) mix of corn, wheat, rice Chex, Cheerios, pretzels, nuts, and potato sticks that I vary depending on which part of the family it's going to. Mine gets more nuts, my dad's more celery seed, no nuts for one sister's kids, etc.
nice, thanks for sharing it.