Cheesy Garlic Snack Mix
Snack mixes are great; they’re quick and easy. Unfortunately, many of the snack mixes in the store leave much to be desired because many of them are cross-contaminated with soy, nuts, and milk. Sunflower oil is often a main ingredient, and since I can’t have any of these things, that means it’s a no-go for me. That has turned into an opportunity to get creative and make my own snack mix. Cheese and garlic snack mix is a fun way to satisfy your cheese cravings without the dairy.
This mix includes gluten-free rice cereal, gluten-free pretzels (sunflower oil-free), corn chips, pumpkin seeds, organic seasonings (onion, garlic, and paprika), and last but not least, the cheesy flavor of nutritional yeast. Put all of these in a bowl and mix. Add to a reusable bag—I like these ones—or a container with a lid. It will keep for about 7 days. You can buy the rice cereal, the pretzels, corn chips, and nutritional yeast, but if you really want to get creative, you can make your own homemade seasoning. If you have a dehydrator, then you can dry some onions, garlic, and red and orange bell peppers to make the paprika. Follow your dehydrator’s instructions, but I share the method I used with the dehydrator I bought. I bought the Brod and Taylor Dehydrator, which you can find here. I bought the one with the plastic shelves, and then I used silicone mats to cover them. These are really important because as the onions, peppers, and garlic dry, they will shrink significantly and be able to fall through the holes in the shelves.
For the onions and garlic, you cut them into pieces; size doesn’t matter too much, but just make sure they’re as similarly sized as possible so they dry at the same rate. You can fit about two whole, medium-sized onions per shelf. For the garlic, you can fit about one whole sleeve of garlic on one shelf. The garlic I buy come 3 whole cloves to a pack. For the peppers, you can buy the baby peppers or the 3-pack large size; either works fine. Slice the peppers and place them on the shelves. Dry them starting at 150* for 8 hours, then turn it down to 135* and dry for another 7 hours. They should be crisp; you don’t want them to still be bendable, soft, or chewy.
Once dry, you can add them to a spice grinder to make them into a powder. Add it to a glass spice jar.
Enjoy
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Ingredients
1 cup rice cereal
1/2 cup pretzels
1/2 cup corn chips
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1-2 tsp nutritional yeast
Directions
Add all ingredients to a bowl and Mix. Enjoy
