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Trash Snack Mix
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Trash Snack Mix

This savory, back-in-the-day snack mix provides a fun variety of crunchy, snacky treats. Use the recipe as written, or combine your favorite cracker- or chip-type snacks totaling 12 cups.
Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time1 hr
Total Time1 hr 10 mins
Servings: 12 1-cup servings

Ingredients

For the Snack Ingredients:

  • 2 cups Rice Chex®
  • 2 cups Corn Chex®
  • 2 cups Cheerios®
  • 2 cups original flavor Bugles®
  • 1 cup original flavor Fritos®
  • 1 cup oyster crackers
  • 1 cup small pretzels
  • 1 cup mixed nuts

For the Seasoning Mix:

  • 3/4 cup butter, softend
  • 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder or granulated garlic
  • 1/2 teaspoon onion powder or granulated onion
  • 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
  • 1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

For the Snack Ingredients

  • In a large bowl, combine all of the snack ingredients. You will need a total of 12 cups dry ingredients in the combination of your choosing. Set aside.

For the Seasoning Ingredients

  • To a medium glass, microwave-proof bowl, add the seasoning ingredients. Cover bowl with wax paper and place in microwave. Cook on high 1 minute or until the butter is completely melted. Remove from microwave and whisk to combine ingredients well.
  • Pour the seasoning ingredients over the snack ingredients. Stir to coat all of the snack ingredients well. Transfer to a large baking or roasting pan and spread out evenly.
  • Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Turn out onto several layers of paper towels to cool. Store, up to one week, in an airtight container when cool.

Notes

  1. There’s Trash Snack Mix and White Trash Snack Mix. Trash Snack Mix is savory and White Trash Snack Mix is sweet. This recipe is for regular Trash.
  2. This snack mix has a lot of different crunchy items. Many original recipes call for potato sticks (Potato Stix®), but I have left them out of this recipe. I found them to be too "fussy", being small and pokey. I am pretty sure that they used to be more substantial back in the 60's and 70's.
  3. If you don’t want all of those various crunchy, snacky things, then simply mix and match a total of 12 cups of your favorites.
  4. If you want a spiffed up version of Chex Party Mix®, check out our family's Zesty Snack Mix.