Hooked on These

I find that I don’t make a lot of snacks. Buy them? Sure. Eat them? No doubt about it. But other then maybe cutting up some bell peppers, I really do very little on the snack front. Well, that used to be the case.

Last year a co-worker of mine brought in a Ziploc bag of these mini-pretzel nuggets. He brought them over and offered one to me. I could see that they had some kind of spices on them and so I took one and popped it into my mouth.

Now, I am much more of a “chips” kind of guy versus pretzels, but that bite was great. I secured the recipe and made them that weekend. And the next. And two weeks after that. And….

Well, let’s just say that I now always have them on hand or if I run out, I have the ingredients on the list for the next grocery run. My youngest has become hooked on them as well.

Spicy Pretzel Bites

Can’t you just see the flavor?

I now make two bags at a time. The nuggets, some oil and a few spices.

Pour the pretzels into a large bowl. Add a bit of oil and add the spices. Mix well.

Spread them on cookie sheets and bake. Every 20 minutes I take them out, dump them back into a bowl and them put them back on the cookie sheet (so much easier than trying to flip them on the sheet).

YUM!!

Spicy Pretzel Bites

Prep Time: 3 min | Cook Time: 1 hr | Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

1 large bag of Pretzel Nubs.  (Double for two bags) 1/3-1/2 cup oil (use just enough to get all nubs covered) 2 tsp Dill 2 tsp Cajun 1 packet of dry ranch dressing 2 tsp Chili Powder – optional 2 tsp of red cayenne pepper – optional

Directions:

Dump pretzels into large bowl, then gradually pour oil over pretzels making sure to thoroughly mix as you complete this step.  Remember, I prefer to use just enough to lightly coat each pretzel nub.

Mix all other ingredients together in a bowl.

Once oil is coating all nubs, add the spice mix, gradually trying to thoroughly mix as you are trying to apply spice to each pretzel nub.

Place all pretzel nubs onto a large cookie tray and spread out as much as you can.  It is fine if they are lightly stacked.  Note, if you see that the ingredients look a little light, feel free to shack on some more at this time.  Sometimes you lose some as it sticks to the remaining oil left in your stirring bowl.

Place in 250 degree oven for 1 hour turning even 15-20 minutes

Source: Greg Caddell