It is hardly fair that Fall should come and we should miss out on Chex Mix. Not the pre-made stuff you find on store shelves, with chocolate-y sauces and sugar coatings and who knows what else. No, home-made stuff is what I’m talking about. Half of the experience is the smell as it cooks, and the fact that you can eat it steaming hot right out of the oven.
And let’s be clear, this grainless, chex-less chex mix has a very functional purpose: to keep you from gorging yourself on the Chex-FULL chex mix that will be circulating during the colder months.
Until the good folks at General Mills start to offer Pork Cracklings Chex, this will be a fairly good approximation.
- 1 Cup Pepitas Dried, not roasted
- 1 Cup Slivered almonds
- 1 Cup Chopped pecans
- 2 Cups Plantain chips Trader Joe's makes good ones; so does your local corner store
- 2 Tbsp Butter Melted
- 4 Tbsp Worcester sauce You *can* substitute coconut aminos
- 1 Tbsp Lowrey's Seasoned Salt
- 1 1/2 Tsps Garlic powder
- 1 Tsp Onion powder
- Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
- Add almonds, pecans, and pepitas to a large mixing bowl
- Take the plantain chips and crush them a bit. You just want to break them up into smaller pieces so that they mix better with the nuts and seeds. Put them in the bowl with the nuts and seeds.
- Melt butter in the microwave; 30 seconds on high will do.
- Add Worcester sauce, seasoned salt, garlic powder and onion powder. Mix thoroughly.
- Into the mixing bowl with the plantain chips, nuts and seeds, drizzle the sauce all over. Gently mix throughly.
- Mix until the sauce is spread evenly over the other ingredients. In standard Chex-mix, there's a lot more butter; we use a lot less here because the chips, nuts and seeds won't absorb it. But as a result, you need to spend a bit more time mixing things up here.
- Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Check to see if things have begun to brown. If not, bake for another 5 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool. Serve as soon as you can get them into your mouth without burning yourself. Devour, preferably in groups, but it's also ok if you want to split this up into several bowls and devour separately.
For several reasons, this isn't totally paleo. Most Worcester sauce will have some soy sauce and/or sugar in it, and the seasoned salt we used (Lowry's, of course), has some corn starch in it. Also, it's likely that your store-bought plantain chips were fried, and probably in sunflower or canola oil.
If you want to make this more (if not perfectly) paleo, you can roast your own plantain chips in the oven; use 1 tsp himalayan pink salt, 1/4 tsp paprika, and 1/4 tsp pepper in place of the seasoned salt; and use coconut aminos or anchovy paste instead of the Worcester sauce.