Valentine Snack Mix: A mixture of melted white chocolate, dry cereal, sprinkles, cookies, and candies make this one of our favorite Valentine snacks!
Plus, it’s a delicious easy dessert treat that can be customized to use your favorite Valentine’s Day candy!
It seems like there’s a “Chex mix” recipe for every holiday out there! Whether it’s a savory homemade Chex mix recipe or a sweet snack mix, it’s usually an easy recipe that’s versatile that can be customized to fit the holiday colors and flavors! (We even made an Easter snack mix and a Christmas mix recipe!)
When it comes to Valentine snack mix recipes, it’s fun to add red and pink to a white chocolate-covered “base” that can consist of dry cereal, pretzels, or even something like popcorn!
But for this recipe, since we love our hot chocolate muddy buddies so much around the holidays, and our lemon puppy chow in the spring, we knew we wanted something similar for a Valentine muddy buddy mix.
Jump to:
Ingredients
This Valentine’s Day snack mix is made using melted white chocolate, two types of dry cereal, other dry snacks, sprinkles, and your favorite red, pink and white candies.
White Chocolate:
Although you can use white almond bark, I REALLY recommend using Ghiradelli white chocolate baking chips or the vanilla melting wafers for this. Almond bark is absolutely ok to use and this will still turn out delicious… but Ghiradelli chocolate is INCREDIBLE.
Cereal:
- Rice Chex (Any Chex cereal will do but we prefer Rice Chex)
- Kashi Honey Toasted (It has circles and HEARTS! How perfect is that for Valentine’s Day!)
Cookies, Pretzels, Sprinkles, Candy:
This is where it can get really fun! I know that sometimes it can be hard to find the exact type of ingredients that I used in this recipe so know that you can mix things up to either fit what you have on hand or what kind of flavors you prefer!
For this recipe, we used:
- Valentine’s Day Sprinkles (We bought ours from Walmart but you can usually find them at Target, Hobby Lobby, or similar stores too! Or, snag some on Amazon if you have time for delivery!)
- White Chocolate Covered Pretzels – you can use regular pretzels and mix that in with the cereal if you prefer. Note: this will reduce the amount of chocolate coating on cereal mixture, so you may want to melt more chocolate than suggested.
- Mini White Chocolate Kit Kats – if you can’t find the “mini’s” you can break up regular size Kit Kats in to small pieces.
- Starburts “FaveREDS” Jelly Beans – if you love Jelly Beans but can’t find the Starburst brand, you can pick out the pink and reds from regular jelly beans. Or, order Jelly Belly’s online!
- Valentine M&M’s – like the jelly beans above, if you can’t find the Valentine mix, you can usually find the colors you need online but around Valentine’s Day, you can usually find them in grocery stores or Target!
- “FaveReds” Starburst Mini’s – You can usually find these all year long but you can also use regular size Starbursts, or you could even cut the regular size in half if you prefer a smaller bite for this mix.
- Circus Animal Cookies – these are the perfect colors for this mix! But feel free to use regular animal crackers if you can’t find this kind. We love using these in so many desserts, like our Circus Animal donuts because they had the perfect flavor and pop of color for some fun!
See the recipe card below, for full ingredient amounts and instructions!
Instructions
Prep:
- First, thinking ahead, grab a large baking sheet and cover it completely with parchment paper. Or, you can pull out a large sheet of parchment paper (big enough all of the cereal will fit on it after covered with chocolate) and place it on a flat surface like a kitchen counter. This will be used after mixing the melted chocolate and cereal.
Melting the Chocolate:
- Next, melt the chocolate baking chips in a large bowl (large enough that the cereal will fit in it after the chocolate is melted).
To melt the chocolate chips or melting wafers, it’s best to refer to the package directions as they can all be different.
However, most of the time, it’s recommended when melting in the microwave, to melt the chocolate on half-power for 2 minutes, stopping and stirring the chocolate every 30 seconds. DO NOT OVERCOOK – as the chocolate will “burn” and won’t melt smooth.
Combine Chocolate and Cereal:
- Once chocolate is completely melted, pour dry cereal in to bowl of white chocolate and carefully stir to mix, trying to make sure all of the cereal becomes covered.
- Next, pour in half of the sprinkles, and stir.
Add Half of the Sprinkles
- Once mixed, pour out the white chocolate mixture on to parchment paper and spread out so most of it is in a single layer. (It’s ok if some of it’s still touching – you’ll be breaking it up in to small pieces anyway once it has hardened.)
- Sprinkle the remaining sprinkles on the top of the cereal before the chocolate hardens.
Cooling Time:
- Allow cereal to “dry” (about 10 minutes) and then break up the cereal in to small bite-size pieces. (Remember, this is a snack mix so it’s ok if some of cereal is stuck together but large pieces are harder to eat when snacking.)
Add Remaining Ingredients:
- Next, it’s time to add in the remaining ingredients. (Candies, cookies, pretzels, etc.)
- You can either mix it all together in the large bowl or you can pour the candies and cookies on top of the broken pieces of cereal and mix it with your hands.
How to Serve this Valentine Chex Mix Recipe:
There are a lot of fun ways you can serve this!
- You can leave this easy treat out on a baking sheet for everyone to graze on. Maybe next to these heart-shaped cookies!
- Pour it in a large serving bowl that can be included on a buffet line with other desserts, if entertaining.
- Divide it in to multiple smaller bowls or dishes, and place them in different areas if hosting guests, for an easy party treat, so they can easily munch on it, no matter which room they’re in!
- Divide the white chocolate snack mix in to small snack bags, or plastic bag, and tie it with a cute tag, and deliver this sweet treat to your friends and family for the perfect Valentine’s Day snack!
Substitutions
As mentioned earlier, this recipe is very forgiving so feel free to substitute items to make it your favorite! For instance:
- Corn Chex instead of Rice Chex
- Cheerios instead of Kashi ceral
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
- Golden Grahams cereal
- Different, pink and red candies
- Almond bark instead of baking chips
- Popcorn instead of cereal
- Different cookies or animal crackers
- Add in mini marshmallows
- Mix in peanut butter with chocolate
Variations
If you love the look and sound of this mix, and want to change it up to fit the holiday you’re making it for, head to the store and see if you can find candies/cookies/snacks in the color you’re aiming for. For instance, green candies for St. Patricks Day, red and green for Christmas, etc.
Storage
Store in a covered, airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days.
What can you do with leftover Valentine candy?
Whether you have leftover Valentine candy and you’re wanting to make this snack mix with it, or you have leftover candy after making this recipe, there are a LOT of ways you can use it up! Here are some of our favorites:
- Make this similar recipe but substitute popped pocorn for the cereal.
- Mix in to ice cream
- Top pancakes with syrup and chocolate candies
- Add the chocolate candies to cookies such as these brownie mix cookies
More Valentine’s Day Ideas
Looking for more ways to spread the love this year? Here are a few of our Valentine’s Day favorites:
You must use the category name, not a URL, in the category field.Recipe
Valentine Snack Mix
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups white chocolate chips we prefer Ghirardelli (See post for other suggestions)
- 3 cups Rice Chex cereal can use corn Chex but rice is preferred
- 1 cup Kashi Honey Toasted Oat Cereal can use Cheerios if desired but Kashi has "hearts"!
- 5 oz. white fudge covered pretzels We used "Flipz" brand and the 5 oz. bag
- 1 7.6 bag of mini white chocolate Kit Kat's
- 1 cup Circus Animal cookies The pink and white sprinkled animal crackers
- ½ cup "Cupid Mix" M&M's red and pink variety of M&M's
- ½ cup FaveREDS mini Starbursts
- ½ cup FaveREDS Starburst jelly beans
- ¼ cup Valentine sprinkles
Instructions
- First, thinking ahead, grab a large baking sheet and cover it completely with parchment paper.
- Next, melt the chocolate baking chips in a large bowl (large enough that the cereal will fit in it after the chocolate is melted) following the package directions for melting. (Most will be to melt on half-power for 2 minutes, stirring every 30 seconds. Do NOT overcook.)
- Once chocolate is completely melted, pour dry cereal in to bowl of white chocolate and carefully stir to mix, trying to make sure all of the cereal becomes covered.
- Next, pour in half of the sprinkles, and stir.
- Once mixed, pour out chocolate covered cereal on to parchment paper and spread out so most of it is in a single layer. (It's ok if some of it's still touching – you'll be breaking it up in to small pieces anywhay once hardened.)
- Sprinkle the reamaining sprinkles on the top of the cereal before the chocolate hardens.
- Allow cereal to "dry" (about 10 minutes) and then break up the cereal in to small bite-size pieces. (Remember, this is a snack mix so it's ok if some of cereal is stuck together but large pieces are harder to eat when snacking.)
- Next, it's time to add in the remaining ingredients. (Candies, cookies, pretzels, etc.)
- You can either mix it all together in the large bowl or you can pour the candies and cookies on top of the broken pieces of cereal and mix it with your hands. Serve!
Notes
- Corn Chex instead of Rice Chex
- Cheerios instead of Kashi ceral
- Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal
- Different, pink and red candies
- Almond bark instead of baking chips
- Popcorn instead of cereal
- Different cookies or animal crackers
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Deana Darwin says
So fun and adorable! My kids loved this, thank you!
Jessica says
Oh good, I’m so glad they liked this Valentine’s Day treat! Thank you!
Allyssa says
Thank you so much for sharing this amazing recipe! Will surely have this again! It’s really easy to make and it tasted so delicious! Highly recommended!
courtney says
My girls and I LOVED this! So cute and made the best little treat for our neighbors!
Jessica says
I’m so glad you all liked this Valentine’s treat! It’s perfect for the kiddos (and neighbors)! ) Thank you for sharing!