Fourth of July Trail Mix
Cereal, popcorn, pretzels, and dried berries mixed at home and eaten by the handful.
- calories
- 430
- weight
- 3 oz
- cal / oz
- 143
- protein
- 7 g
- serves
- 8, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 0 min
- total time
- 5 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- No cook
- Backpacking
- Day hike
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Blueberry Chex cereal | 4 cups | |
|---|---|---|
| Kettle corn | 3 cups | bagged, already popped |
| Pretzel bites | 2 cups | |
| Dried cranberries | 1 cup | |
| Dried blueberries | 3/4 cup | |
| Slivered almonds | 3/4 cup | |
| Banana chips | 1 cup | |
| Red, white, and blue M&M's | 1 1/2 cups |
Method
- Tip everything into your largest bowl at home.
- Fold it over with both hands rather than stirring hard. The cereal and popcorn break if you push them around.
- Portion into bags right away, about 3 oz each.
- Eat straight from the bag on the trail. No water, no stove.
This is a bulk snack, not a meal, and the ratio is what makes it work. Popcorn and cereal give volume with almost no weight, so the bag looks like more food than it weighs. The dried fruit, nuts, and candy carry the actual calories. Roughly half sweet, half salty, which is why you keep reaching into it after the third hour instead of getting sick of it.
It came off a holiday gift-tag recipe, and the only change worth mentioning is portioning. A pretty jar of this crushes into dust in a pack. Bagging it at home in single servings keeps the pieces intact and stops you from eating four days of snacks on day one. The chocolate is the weak point in summer heat; everything else is stable for months.
Packing
Split into single-serving bags at home and squeeze the air out. Loose in a big bag it compacts into crumbs and chocolate by day two. In heat, the M&M's shell holds better than bare chocolate but still sweats above about 85F, so keep bags inside the pack and not in a lid pocket.
Variations
- Swap the M&M's for yogurt-covered raisins if you want less dye.
- Drop the almonds and it is nut-free. Everything else stays.
- Salted peanuts in place of almonds raise the protein and cut the sweetness.
https://homeandkind.com/blogs/food-recipes/4th-of-july-trail-mix-with-free-printable