Winter Puppy Chow

The best gifts are the ones you can eat!

Around the holidays I usually try to make a tasty treat to give out to my family members. It’s an easy way to share a little bit of love for everyone all at once! This past year I came up with a more guilt-free version of a popular snack known as ‘puppy chow’.

Puppy chow is pretty much chex with powdered sugar, and it is commonly made with melted butter. I wanted to come up with an alternative to coat the chex, so I decided to try coconut oil instead. For those who don’t like the taste of coconut, this comes out very mild in the end.

As for the rest of the ingredients, you can throw in whatever you want! I browsed the health section at the grocery store and filled a few bags of nuts and things that I figured would go nicely together. You can definitely follow my recipe, or add in something new of your own! After I passed these out to everyone (and ate some myself) I decided pumpkin seeds would have been a nice addition for color and crunch, so maybe next year! The best part about this is it can be put together pretty quickly and makes a large amount…. which is exactly what I needed.

To start, gather all of the ingredients you want together. I chose chex and cheerios for the main, then dried cranberries, cashews, yogurt pretzels, banana chips, chocolate covered pomegranates and honey almond granola. You will need coconut oil, peanut butter and agave nectar to coat everything so the powdered sugar sticks.

First, pour both kinds of chex, the cheerios and cashews together in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl combine the coconut oil, peanut butter and agave and heat until melted.

Drizzle the liquid over the chex, cheerios and cashews and stir until well coated. Add powdered sugar in a little at a time. I found this easier by putting it all in a large ziploc bag and shaking it up rather than stirring in the bowl. (Just hold the bag carefully!) Once it is all powdered place in the freezer for about 30 minutes to harden.

Remove from freezer and add in the rest of the ingredients, stirring until well mixed. Distribute and present however you like! I personally divided mine up into kombucha bottles (you can use mason jars) so I could give them as decorative gifts 🙂

**Remove the pretzels and wheat chex to make this gluten free.
**Remove the pretzels and chocolate covered pomegranates to make this vegan. A substitute would be needed for the powdered sugar.

Love a good tea to warm you up during winter? My absolute favorite is this sweet and spicy blend from Good Earth. It would go great while snacking on this recipe! I order it in bulk because I drink about two bags a day and just can’t seem to get enough of it. Everyone I introduce it to raves about it and becomes hooked. To top it off there are no artificial sweeteners added.

This was definitely a success so I’m sure I will be making it every year! I brought some to work as a trial and error for whether it tasted too much like ‘health food’ and it was scarfed down so my conclusion is the coconut oil turned out to be the perfect solution. For those of you who make this and happen to switch it up a little feel free to share a photo of your version!