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This caramel Cheerios Snack Mix recipe is a sweet indulgence, perfect for party food. Imagine cereal combined with nuts, pretzels, and other snack foods, topped with a sweet caramel sauce. Once it cools, it turns into an addictive, crunchy finger food.
I was at a party once where someone served what I thought was the tastiest snack I’d ever had. I feel like that with about every new snack I try. This one was a Caramel Snack Mix and I knew within minutes of trying it that I had to make some!
And of course, any time I make something myself, that means I have to embellish the caramel snacks recipe too.
Key Ingredients
You can find the full printable recipe, including ingredient quantities, below. But first, here are some explanations of ingredients and steps to help you make this recipe perfect every time.
Here are the ingredients you’ll need for this recipe, including substitution ideas:
Vegan butter — Use Earth Balance, Miyokos, or even your own homemade vegan butter.
Brown sugar — Use light, dark, or your own brown sugar.
Light corn syrup
Vanilla
Baking soda
Cheerios
Pretzel pieces
Peanuts
Snack food — add your favorite snacks like roasted nuts, raisins, or even some vegan popcorn
Sprinkles(optional)
How to Make Caramel Snack Mix Recipe
Lightly grease a cookie sheet with vegetable oil spray and set aside.
Add the vegan butter to a saucepan and cook on medium low until melted. Add syrup and brown sugar and cook 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and add baking soda and vanilla. Add the cheerios, pretzel pieces and nuts and stir to coat evenly.
Spread the mixture out on a cookie sheet and place in 200 degree oven for 20 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.
Allow the snack mix to cool and then break into pieces by hand.
Make sure you use a large saucepan because when you add the baking soda, the mixture will “foam up” and expand
Do not touch the mixture once you’ve combined the caramel sauce over the cereal. Use a spatula to stir it and pour it into the prepared pan (because it’s very hot)
Allow the coated cereal mix to cool completely before breaking it into pieces.
Add chex cereal to transform this into a caramel chex mix recipe or use Crispix cereal for a caramel crispix mix!
The nutrition information shown is an estimate provided by an online nutrition calculator and should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Did you make this recipe?
Leave a rating below then tag @namelymarly on Instagram and hashtag it #namelymarly. I love seeing your creations!
Enjoy!
This post was originally published in 2010 and was updated to include new photos, new text, and an updated recipe in 2020.
Wet caramel is made by combining sugar and a liquid and cooking them together, while dry caramel is made from just sugar, heated in a dry pan until it liquefies and browns.
The melted sugar should be cooked until it's a deep amber colour — it's done when it starts to smoke and begins to foam just a little bit. At this point, it should be removed from the heat immediately to stop the sugar from darkening any further.
The water evaporates, leaving sugar crystals behind. If even one sugar crystal falls back into the pan of cooking caramel, it starts a chain reaction of sugar crystals and the entire pan will harden. The result? Gross, grainy caramel that is unusable in most recipes.
It is surprisingly easy to make caramel syrup from scratch, calling for just sugar, water, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt and taking less than 20 minutes to prepare. It adds a rich sweetness to drinks, including your morning coffee or evening co*cktails.
Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium to low heat and bring to a boil. Boil for 10 to 15 minutes or until the sugar caramelizes and turns golden brown. Do not stir the mixture as the sugar heats or it can start to crystallize.
Give your caramel at least two hours to set, or overnight if possible. You can also pop caramel into the fridge to help it set up faster. The caramel will sweat a little when brought out of the fridge, but will still taste fine. If you don't eat it right away, here's how to store caramel.
Refrigerate until cooled and hardened. (Best if you refrigerate them overnight, or for several hours. They will be easier to cut and wrap). The caramel will seem hard in the fridge after they're set, but they should be soft at room temperature.
To thicken a caramel sauce, use one tablespoon of cornstarch or tapioca starch (sometimes known as tapioca flour) and one tablespoon of water per cup of caramel. Then simmer the caramel, stirring it constantly with a wooden spoon until it becomes thick.
Be very careful as you heat your caramel. Follow the recipe carefully, and never melt your caramel on your stove's highest setting—it will cause the caramel to scorch and taste burnt. Once it gets a burnt or bitter flavor, it can't be saved.
Sometimes other ingredients are included, like corn syrup or water. Either way, once the crystals are melted, they do not want to be agitated. Instead of stirring, you gently swirl the melted sugar around in the pan to keep it moving and avoid burn spots.
Caramel sauce is easier to mix and dissolve, and it also has a richer flavor because of the dairy / fat. If you want to use it to decorate your coffee (hot or iced) on top of the whipped cream, I'd recommend syrup because it holds well in lower temperatures and it is better to make drawings.
Why do I add corn syrup? Corn syrup acts as an "interfering agent" in this and many other candy recipes. It contains long chains of glucose molecules that tend to keep the sucrose molecules in the candy syrup from crystallizing. Lots of sucrose crystals would results in grainy caramels.
Caramel is white granulated sugar that's been heated slowly to 340 degrees Fahrenheit. This gradual heating process breaks down the sugar's molecules and creates a deep golden brown color and rich flavor.
Burnt Sugar is a caramelised sugar syrup produced through the controlled heating of food sugars without the addition of other ingredients/additives. The Maillard reaction caramelised the starches contained in sugar and produces the brown colour and caramel flavour.
The nature properties of sugar has been change to a totally different thing after the chemical processes. Therefore, caramel cannot be classified as a type of sugar even though the starting material to produce it is sugar!!
“Caramels are prepared from sugars but they are different from sugars,” Cédric Moretton, physico-chemical laboratory manager at Nigay, tells NutritionInsight. “During the caramelization process, thousands of different molecules are created, responsible for the flavor and the color of caramels.
Introduction: My name is Stevie Stamm, I am a colorful, sparkling, splendid, vast, open, hilarious, tender person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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