Gluten Free Chex Mix

M's dad lives a 16 hour drive from here. I am told only Canadians measure distance with time, but it's the only way I know how. So his dad (and sisters and grandparents) all live South of the border. Which is great, and we've gone to visit them a couple times, both over Christmas. His grandma makes Chex mix every single year for Christmas, and M's dad picked up the habit (and the recipe). I'm not hooked on it, because I've only had it two Christmas's, but M loves it, and misses it around the holidays.

When my family, up here, decided to have a Christmas/Thanksgiving dinner, I had to figure out what to bring. Something gluten-free, without being really obviously gluten-free, and something everyone would enjoy. I thought of Chex mix, for M's sake. I didn't use his dad's recipe, I used a recipe I found online that called for a slow cooker.

I found the recipe for this on Facebook - you know, one of those posts that everybody "shares to save to their wall". What is wrong with just using Pinterest? - so I can't link you back to the creator. I don't think I would, anyways. The instructions were to fill your slow cooker with cereal, pretzels, and nuts and then add this sauce. No measurements for the cereal, or sizes of the slow cooker. After an hour, I stirred and tasted, and then added the same amount of sauce again. It came out perfect in the end, so next time I'll just double it to start off with.

So I dumped a whole box of Honey Nut Chex in, because I had an unopened box that I wasn't eating, and then I poured in enough Rice Krispies to cover it, and then added some pretzels. Equally specific as the original instructions.

Despite being vague, it really is a simple recipe. From there, you melt some butter, add some spices, pour it over, and put it on low for two and a half hours. I opened a few times to stir, and it still was done after that time. I'm sure you could give or take some time. The amounts I give below are what I ended up adding, so what you would need to add for a slow cooker this size (about 5 quarts).

Slow Cooker Chex Mix

1/2 cup melted butter

3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp salt

2 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp sugar

Add everything to the melted butter, stir and let dissolve. Pour over cereal, etc in slow cooker and mix. Cook on Low for 2.5 hours. Stir every 30-60 minutes. Enjoy!

So M didn't really love it, because it wasn't his dad's recipe, and it wasn't close enough, but his dad's recipe calls for three different kinds of Chex (including whole wheat), and bugles, and other stuff I didn't have access to. The spice mix was really close, but the biggest difference is that I used Honey Nut Chex, so they were sweet and threw him off.