Grandma Jean’s Snack Mix Recipe

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to receive two huge boxes stuffed to the brim with my Grandma Jean’s handwritten recipe cards. There are recipes for everything from grasshopper pie to crab puffs to chili sauce and everything in between. Long before the days of online recipe rating, she’d label the ones she loved as ‘goo—ood” and the ones that were just so-so as “fine.” Whenever I want to feel connected to her, I rifle through those recipes for inspiration. 

Recently, I’ve been dreaming of her version of the classic holiday snack mix filled with Chex cereal, nuts, and pretzels, so I decided to see if I could pull up the original recipe card. No luck! I called my mom and asked her to do a search, but she came up empty-handed as well. Luckily, I have three sisters; surely one of them would have the secret to the family’s favorite snack mix.

Wrong, I struck out again. But once we all had the snack mix on the brain, a semblance of a recipe started to take shape. As the youngest member of my immediate family, my strongest memory of the mix was the Cheerios, not something you find in your standard snack mix. My eldest sister Katie was fond of the Brazil nuts. My mom remembered the pretzels needed to be a specific shape. 

After some trial and error and experimentation, I reverse-engineered the snack mix we collectively loved. Funny enough, about two weeks after completing this recipe, I found a recipe card in my grandmother’s handwriting for snack mix tucked into her copy of Toll House Tried and True Recipes, but it didn’t have any of the flair we all came to love. Turns out, she must have riffed a little each time she assembled it, making it even more special!

Tweak This Recipe

Use this recipe as a guide. It makes a lot of snack mix, but it’ll get gobbled up in no time. If you’d like to make a smaller batch, just halve the recipe and use one sheet pan.

Feel free to stick to all Rice Chex or mix it up with the addition of Cheerios and Wheat Chex. For the mix-ins, I prefer pretzel sticks since that’s what my grandmother always used, but any shape will do. Got kiddos? Throw in some of their favorite snack crackers. Whatever you do, don’t skimp on the butter or seasoning salt!