No, not with milk and sugar. (Ew.) This is a reworking of the honey mustard pretzels that I wrote about a few years ago.
(Three years?!? Dang. How time flies.)
Recently DF made a batch of honey mustard pretzels and on a whim, tossed in some generic Rice Chex. He modified the recipe in another way, too, since we are nearly out of honey. (More on that later.)
The result was savory and sweet-spicy and pure fun – and the cereal bits were the best part. We rapidly cherry-picked all those little crunchy bits out before we started in on the pretzels.
“Next time I’m doing only cereal,” he vowed.
And he did. Reader, they are great. They’re even frugal. I predict the bowl (pictured above) will be empty by the end of the day tomorrow, even if we try to behave ourselves.
It takes a little bit of fussing to make them, but not that much. The new recipe he came up with today is even better than his first revision.
For starters, he did away with the honey and just used plain old sugar. Instead of using prepared mustard, he used mustard vinegar. When our Costco-sized mustard bottles are nearly empty, we pour in vinegar and give the bottle a good shake. The result is useful for livening up soup, beans or lentils; I never would have thought to use it with honey mustard pretzels. (For more frugal hacks, see “Good to the last drop: Getting full use of condiments.”)
DF also added onion powder and a small amount of sriracha pepper from a bottle someone gave us. Increased the garlic powder, too.
Good grief, is it tasty.
The honey mustard cereal recipe
Start by melting one-third of a cup of butter or margarine.
Stir in one-quarter cup sugar and 3 tablespoons mustard vinegar or prepared mustard. (Not both!)
Add 2 tablespoons dry mustard, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder and ¼ teaspoon of sriracha spice blend. If you don’t have sriracha spice blend, maybe a couple of drops of sriracha sauce in its stead? The variety we have also has lemon and ginger in it. (As an Amazon affiliate, I may be reimbursed for products bought through my links.)
Stir well and pour the mixture over 10 to 12 ounces of generic Chex cereal, tossing to coat evenly. He used the last of the faux Rice Chex and then some from a box of generic Corn Chex that he found in the dented-can bin last week.
Apportion the cereal among a few cookie sheets that you’ve greased or shined-up with cooking spray. Bake for one hour at 250 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes or so. DF warns that you need to keep a close eye on the stuff for the last 15 minutes, lest it start to scorch.
And yeah, technically they aren’t really honey mustard pretzels because we substituted sugar for the honey. Details.
A few frugal tips
Watch for sales, coupons and rebates for Big G cereals, since Chex is one of them, because it might wind up being even cheaper than the generic. The CouponMom.com website does sale/coupon/rebate matchups for supermarkets and drugstores, so keep an eye out. (There’s a rebate right now on Coupons.com, and a coupon on the Fred Meyer website, so I might hit that up tomorrow.)
Vinegar is cheapest at a club store like Costco. If you don’t belong to one of those, you can find vinegar at the dollar store.
If you use rewards programs like Shopkick, Fetch or Mr Rebates, cash in for a $5 gift card to defray the cost of any ingredients you don’t have on hand at the moment.
Look for a bakery outlet if you do want to add the pretzels. We’ve paid as little as 50 cents a pound for these things. Not that every outlet automatically has pretzels, but it’s worth checking. Here’s how to find bakery outlets in your region:
Aunt Millie’s: Stores in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Bimbo Bakeries USA: Store outlets in 44 of the 50 states.
Franz: Stores in Alaska, Montana, Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Holsum: Outlets in Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Oroweat: Locations in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colrado, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Washington.
Pepperidge Farms: Stores in Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Schwebel’s: Stores in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
In addition, search for “bakery outlet in [your town],” since a regional bakery might have a used-bread shop.
Bon appetit! And prepare to eat way too much honey mustard cereal.
Readers: What’s your favorite Chex-mix-but-not-really snack? Share the recipe!
The recipe sounds delicious, Donna. I’m not seeing the amount of sugar DF used in the recipe – could you share? Assuming he added it in with the other dry ingredients?
Whoops. Fixed. Thanks!
This is such a timely post. I was looking at a giant leftover box of 3 types of Chex cereal from Christmas this morning and trying to figure out what to do with it. This would be an excellent way to use up the cereal and the almost solid honey in the pantry. I think I have half a bag of pretzels too.
Hope it turns out well.
I used your Honey Mustard Cereal recipe on remnants left over from holiday Chex Mix ingredients (Pretzel Crips & Wheat Chex). I used honey vs. sugar & threw in 1 cup of honey roasted peanuts since I had both on hand, as well as a few cinnamon sugar pecans that my friend gifted but were unfortunately a bit stale by the time they reached me. Used Penzey’s Bangkok seasoning I had on hand vs. siracha sauce, as I noted that it contained ginger & lemon. Super delicious combination that allowed me to use up some left-over items in a new way. Thank you for the recipe, Donna!
That sounds delicious. Let’s hear it for repurposed remnants!