This Easy Trick Makes Chocolatey Trail Mix More Delicious

Do you ever wish there was a simple yet reliable way to upgrade your favorite trail mix recipe without changing the ingredients? Before considering more unique ingredients to add to your next snack mix, such as black sesame seeds and toasted coconut chips, if your go-to mixture includes chocolate, simply upgrade your recipe with a new preparation method. Instead of enjoying another batch of regular old trail mix made with salty nuts, dried fruit, and chocolate chips, melt the added chocolate for an entirely new eating experience.

Sure enough, melted chocolate is an easy way to elevate your next batch of trail mix without a ton of extra fuss. When it comes to tasty and unique recipes, apple nachos may be a whimsical snack that comes together in just five minutes, but chocolate-covered trail mix is just as delightful, quick to prepare, and, better yet, can be eaten on-the-go. Thankfully, you can make this chocolatey snack mix in more ways than one.

For a simple and delicious homemade variation, start by roasting raw nuts and seeds in a small amount of oil and salt on a lined sheet pan in a low-temperature oven. After removing it from heat, add a scattered handful of dried fruit and chocolate chips or chopped chocolate directly to the pan. Wait a few minutes and then stir. The residual heat from the nuts and seeds will melt the chocolate so that it coats your homemade trail mix in a thin layer of sweetness. Once dried, this sweet and salty snack can be eaten in chunks or broken into bite-sized pieces.

You can also make a quickened version of this recipe with pre-made trail mix and melted chocolate. Simply melt some dark, semi-sweet, or milk chocolate in short intervals in your microwave and then pour over store-bought trail mix. From here, coat your trail mix in chocolate and spoon mounds of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet or into miniature liners to dry, leaving you with bite-sized portions.

Feel free to give this snack an extra pop of flavor by adding a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves to the melted chocolate before combining it with your trail mix. Better yet, since you can save your used coffee grounds to amp up your favorite granola, there's no reason why you can't use them to boost the flavor of chocolate-covered trail mix as well. Try stirring a small amount of coffee grounds into your melted chocolate before pouring it over your nuts and seeds. For additional texture, you can also add oats to the mix, giving the snack a granola twist. Just make sure to mix everything together so every last morsel of food is coated in chocolate.

If you want to skip the process of melting chocolate, you can also make chocolate-covered trail mix with cocoa powder. All you need to do is add a sprinkling of cocoa powder to a batch of prepared trail mix. Or, for a more pronounced flavor, roast raw nuts and seeds in a mixture of brown sugar, maple syrup, salt, and cocoa powder.