Halloween Trail Mix
Cereal, pretzels, and three kinds of orange candy. October snack food that packs like ballast.
- calories
- 420
- weight
- 3 oz
- cal / oz
- 140
- protein
- 6 g
- serves
- 12, 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
- Day hike
- Car camping
- Backpacking
- Bikepacking
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Honey Nut Chex | 1 box | |
|---|---|---|
| Honeycomb cereal | 1/2 box | |
| Pretzel twists | 1/2 bag | snap the big ones so they nest |
| Bugles | 1 bag | |
| Reese's Pieces | 2 cups | |
| Pumpkin candies | 2 cups | mellowcreme, not chocolate |
| Candy corn | 2 cups |
Method
- Dump the cereals, pretzels, and Bugles into your largest bowl and toss them together.
- Add the candy last and fold it in gently. Stirring hard grinds the cereal into dust.
- Portion into bags by the cup and squeeze the air out.
This is a sugar-and-starch snack, not a meal, and it works on trail for exactly one reason: the pieces are all about the same size and none of them need water. Cereal and Bugles are mostly air, so a cup weighs almost nothing while carrying real calories. That is a good ratio for a pocket snack and a bad one for pack volume, which is why you portion it small.
No trail adaptation was needed beyond the packing. It is already shelf-stable and no-cook. The only real failure mode is heat: the mellowcreme pumpkins soften and glue everything together, so keep it out of direct sun and eat it in the first week. Nothing here is gluten-free, dairy-free, or nut-free, so read the labels before handing a bag to someone else.
Packing
Portion at home into snack bags, roughly a cup each. One big bag turns to crumbs by day two and you eat all of it at once anyway. In heat, the Reese's Pieces shell holds but the pumpkins go tacky, so keep bags out of the top lid of your pack.
Variations
- Swap the candy for chocolate-free options and it holds up better above 80 degrees.
- Salted peanuts in place of one cup of candy corn cuts the sugar and adds protein.
https://homeandkind.com/blogs/food-recipes/halloween-trail-mix-with-free-printable