Sometimes we like making complicated and fancy food – and sometimes we just want an easy snack, you know? Puppy chow is just such a thing: it’s a party food that originated in the 50s on the back of a box of Chex cereal, which happens to be puppy chow’s main ingredient. In more culinarily adventurous parts of the country this treat didn’t really catch on, but it quickly became a common snack in the Midwest, so if you have family from that part of the country you’ve probably tried puppy chow before. We both got our hands on it at some point in our childhoods but haven’t really had it in our adult years, until we came across this recipe in the New York Times. We figured that if such an upstanding pillar of journalism was giving the seal of approval to puppy chow, we might as well whip it our for ourselves. We made a few adjustments so that the recipe was a little easier and a little more tasty, and we’ll show you here how we fixed ourselves this sweet and crunchy snack – and as a bonus, with just one adjustment you can make some vegan puppy chow.
You’ll need:
- A 12-ounce box of rice Chex
- Chocolate chips or 10 ounces of baking chocolate – for vegan puppy chow, use dairy-free dark chocolate
- Creamy peanut butter
- Vanilla extract
- Powdered sugar
- Peanuts
- Coconut flakes
To start, scoop 3/4 cup of peanut butter into a small saucepan and add either all of the baking chocolate or 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips – we used a combination of both.
Place the pan over low heat and stir continuously until the chocolate and peanut butter have completely melted together into a smooth sauce. Remove this from the heat and stir in a teaspoon of vanilla, then take your Chex and place it into the largest mixing bowl you have. Pour the peanut butter-chocolate sauce over top …
… and gently stir with a spatula until all the cereal is coated in your sauce. Add in 1/2 cup each of coconut flakes and peanuts and mix well.
Now take 2 gallon-sized plastic zipper bags and divide your mix evenly between both. Add 3/4 cup of powdered sugar to each bag, seal them tightly closed, and shake them all around until everything is evenly coated in powdered sugar. Then you can pour out your puppy chow and eat it!
This puppy chow has a great mix of ingredients: peanut butter and chocolate is a classic combination, and it goes well as a sauce for some crispy Chex plus crunchy peanuts and coconut. When you sprinkle all that in a nice coating of powdered sugar, you get a sweet and rich snack. And it’s nice that this is so easy to make, since all you have to do is melt the chocolate and peanut butter, stir everything around (carefully! so you don’t crush the Chex) and then shake on some sugar. Sure, this isn’t the fanciest snack to make, but it’s a middle American classic and we could all do with a little more sweetness and chocolate in our lives.