Sweet And Salty Trail Mix
Nuts, pretzels, chocolate, and dried fruit in one bag. The baseline snack you build everything else from.
- calories
- 320
- weight
- 2 oz
- cal / oz
- 160
- protein
- 8 g
- serves
- 6, 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
- Thru-hike
- Day hike
- Car camping
- Bikepacking
- Canoe / raft
- Vegetarian
- Eat in the bag
- Pre-mix at home
- Shelf stable
- Dump and stir
Ingredients
| Roasted salted peanuts | 1 cup | |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted salted almonds | 1 cup | |
| Mini pretzel twists | 1 cup | broken up so they pack tighter |
| Chocolate candies with a hard shell | 3/4 cup | plain chocolate chips turn to paste above 80F |
| Dried cranberries | 1/2 cup | |
| Dried pineapple or mango | 1/2 cup | cut into thumbnail pieces |
| Coconut flakes | 1/2 cup | toasted, unsweetened |
| Flaky salt | 1/4 tsp |
Method
- Cut the dried fruit down to bite size at home. Big leathery slabs get picked around and left in the bag.
- Dump everything into a gallon bag and shake it end over end, not side to side, so the heavy nuts do not all settle out.
- Add the salt last and shake again briefly.
- Split into roughly 2 oz portions, about a third of a cup each.
This is the sweet-and-salty ratio worked out: roughly half nuts, a quarter starch and chocolate, a quarter dried fruit. The nuts carry the calories and the fat, the pretzels give it salt and something that crunches, and the fruit replaces the sugar you burn off between meals. Skew it too far toward fruit and you have candy that costs the same weight as food.
The hard-shelled chocolate is a deliberate choice. Bare chips melt into the pretzels on a warm afternoon and set into one lump overnight. Coconut flakes are the cheapest fat here by weight, and toasting them at home keeps them from going soft in the bag.
Packing
One gallon bag for mixing, then snack-size bags for the trail. Portioning matters more than it sounds: a shared open bag disappears in a day. Keep the bags out of direct sun in the top of the pack, not strapped to the outside.
Variations
- Swap the pretzels for corn chex if you want it gluten-free.
- Drop the chocolate and add jerky bits for a savory version that survives hot weather.
- Yogurt-covered raisins in place of the chocolate hold shape slightly better but still melt.
https://zenandhoney.com/trail-mix-recipes