Sweet & Spicy Sesame Snack Mix

When you’re craving intense flavor and satisfying crunch, something salty and sweet with just a hint of heat, this sesame-forward snack mix hits all the right notes, with the perfect variety of crunchy bits and a flavor-packed glaze featuring soy sauce, sesame oil, honey and spices.

Because of the honey in the glaze (which is prone to burning), this snack mix bakes at a lower temperature for a longer time, resulting in a perfectly crisp texture every time. And while the longer baking time might test your patience, the favor-packed results are well worth the wait. Might I suggest making an extra large batch (because it surely won’t last long!)

Taylor is a snack fanatic, always crunching on something even if we just finished dinner, going through bags of various snack mixes at an alarming rate (at this point he should probably just change his last name from Hackbarth to Snackbarth).

Lately, however, he’s gotten a bit bored of the same generic snack mix, and was hankering for something bolder with more spice and a more unique flavor profile. So he set out to make his own flavor-packed snack mix.

If you’ve ever searched the internet for homemade snack mix recipes, you’ve probably noticed that almost every snack mix recipe out there is some variation on the same thing (basically the original Chex Mix recipe right from the box). A little Worcestershire, a sprinkle of garlic and onion powder, butter and salt and that’s it. How boring.

Instead, let’s turn that generic flavor up a notch with a gut-punch of sesame (both oil and seeds in addition to the sesame sticks within the snack mix itself), plus soy sauce for saltiness and umami, honey for sweetness, and Korean gochugaru pepper flakes for smokey heat.

For this recipe, we decided to fully embrace the sesame flavor in the form of sesame oil in the sauce, sesame sticks in the crunch mix, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds (because why not?)

The sauce also features a touch of honey for sweetness, the flavor of honey complimenting the salt and the spice, and it also has the added benefit of making the glaze easier to distribute over the dry ingredients (and helping the sesame seeds “stick” to the other bits), baking up to a satisfying crunchy texture. Add in some Koren gochugaru pepper flakes for a bit of earthy, smokey heat, and you have yourself a winner.

While one could easily eat an entire sheet pan of this snack mix in one setting (it was a snaccident, I swear!) it also stores quite well and keeps its crunch when stored in an airtight container at room temperature. We also vacuum sealed half the batch to make it last even longer, although if we’re being completely honest here *someone* broke into that bag mere days later… but I’m still pretty sure it would have stayed nice and crunchy for a couple weeks at least.

The general makeup of most snack mixes works well for a reason: Chex-style cereals, pretzels, nuts, sesame sticks, and some kind of crunchy cracker-ish thing like bagel chips is enough variety to keep the mix interesting. But the majority of the flavor of any snack mix comes from the seasoning, and that’s where this recipe really makes an impression.

We found a bulk box of Chex from Costco that included one box each of corn, rice, and wheat chex. The wheat ones were not our favorite, so we just used the corn and rice for this recipe, but as long as you use 4 cups of Chex in total, you’re golden. Roasty, toasty, golden sesame.

For the other ingredients, we found these perfect mini pretzels, and some random bagel chips from the internet, although I think next time we’ll try to find a different flavor as the garlic and herb didn’t quite fit despite the fact we still used garlic and onion powder in the glaze. Sesame bagel chips would be ideal, or something like these sea salt ones for a more neutral flavor palate.

If your pretzels or bagel chips are on the large side, feel free to break them up into smaller pieces for a better snacking experience.

You can also sub in pretty much any crunchy snacky thing you want here, as long as it’s not too heavily seasoned and goes with the overall flavor profile of the sauce. You want about 9 cups of crunchy stuff overall, but the exact mix of which kinds of crunchy bits you choose is completely up to you.

Feel the heat.

A note about the gochugaru pepper flakes: these Korean pepper flakes are what gives kimchi its signature spice. We find them smokier and earthier than regular red pepper flakes, and the smaller flakes stick to and coat the snack mix more evenly. We felt that 2 tablespoons was the sweet (er, spicy) spot, but feel free to add more or less to suit your personal tastes.

Chipotle pepper flakes would be the best substitution, regular red pepper flakes or even a bit of chili powder would work in a pinch. As these substitutions are much spicier than the gochugaru flakes, I’d recommend starting out with half as much as the recipe calls for; you can always sprinkle on a bit more later if you ultimately want a hotter snack mix (sneak a sample when it’s half way through baking to check the heat level, then if you want it hotter, sprinkle on a bit more while it’s still sticky). But if it’s too hot to begin with, your only option is to make more snack mix without the pepper flakes then mix it all together to temper the first batch down.

This recipe calls for a fairly low oven temperature — 200ºF or 93ºC — for a longer period of time, about 90 minutes. This low-and-slow technique ensures the final snack mix is perfectly crispy, without worrying about the honey in the glaze burning (trust me when I say burnt honey is far from a pleasant flavor profile). Don’t be tempted to use a higher temperature for this reason. It’s worth the wait, I promise!

To ensure even baking, arrange your oven racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven, and rotate the sheet pans a few times during the 90-minute baking period, as well as stir the snack mix on each pan a few times as well. Especially if your oven has hot spots, you want to rotate things evenly so nothing burns.

This recipe makes two sheet pans worth of snack mix, about 9 cups in total, but can easily be halved if you wanted to make a smaller batch (but trust me when I say that while 9 cups might seem like a lot, it’ll be gone before you know it).

Snack mix should be stored in an airtight bag or container at room temperature, and should stay crunchy for a week or two (slightly less in humid conditions). You can also vacuum seal some if you want it to last longer, but I highly doubt you’ll have that problem.