"Chex party mix" was a sign of the times in the early 1950s, one of many new "TV mixes" designed for snacking while watching the tube. It wasn't until the mid-80s that General Mills started producing a storebought version, which made abundantly clear just how unhealthy Chex Mix can be. We've always enjoyed the snack, but have experimented with it over the years to make it healthier and to use more natural ingredients. What we've come up with through a lot of experimentation is a protein-packed, heart-healthier version of a classic snack food.

Betty Crocker has what may be the definitive standard homemade Chex Mix recipe, and it clocks in at about the same nutritional stats as the commercial variety. Both look like decent food choices if you gloss over the serving size, which is a single ounce; those dollar-plus snack bags you can buy at convenience stores actually weigh 3-3/4 ounces, and most consumers probably eat at least half a bag in one go, if not the whole thing. Assuming that you've got pretty good discipline and consume about 2 ounces of the homemade variety in a sitting, you'd be consuming six grams of fat, over 600 mg sodium, and about 240 calories. We haven't tried to calculate all of the specific nutritional stats of our adjusted recipe, but we know it takes a big chunk out of the bad stuff, and replaces some saturated fat with the heart-healthy, unsaturated fats.

Ingredients, with notes

• 9 cups of cereal. We use Nature's Path Organic Heritage Bites cereal, which has roughly the same protein and sodium content as a mixture of Corn and Multigrain Chex, but only about 2/3 the sugar. We've also wanted to try Barbara's Crispy Wheat Cereal. Both of them are often on deep discount if you buy them in a six-pack on Amazon.


• 1 1/2 cups raw nuts. Raw nuts can save you on saturated (bad!) fat and sodium. A cup of roasted, salted cashews, for example, runs 48 grams of fat and around 300 mg sodium per 100 gram serving; raw cashews have 43 grams of fat per 100 grams and only 12 grams of sodium. And most of the fat in nuts is actually good for you - poly- and monounsaturated fats and Omega 3 fatty acids, which are good for your heart, so our recipe calls for a half cup more nuts than Betty Crocker. A blend of cashews, almonds, and Brazil nuts makes a fun blend - just skip the peanuts.


• 1 cup misc. dry ingredients. We've used Annie's Homegrown Cheddar Bunnies, bagel chip pieces, or sesame sticks.


• 1 cup bite-sized, organic unsalted pretzels.


• 4 tablespoons of butter or buttery spread. We like Earth Balance Natural Buttery spread, which has 11 grams of fat per T. to butter's 12, and we use 2/3 as much as Betty Crocker - 4 T. instead of 6, which means we're cutting the recipe's butter fat from 66 grams of fat to 44. There are probably even lower-fat butter substitutes out there you might like.


• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce. Since we're vegetarian, we use The Wizard's Organic Vegetarian Worcestershire sauce, but it has a lot more sodium than Lea & Perrin's - nearly 400 mg to L&P's under 200 for this quantity, so we can't really say that choice makes the dish healthier.


• 1 teaspoon seasoned salt. This is 2/3 Betty Crocker's amount. Still tastes great.


• 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder and 1/2 teaspoon onion powder. I never have this on hand, so I often substitute other seasonings - a little cayenne, a little of whatever else I get my hands on - and that's half the fun of it. A good seasoning blend can help make that lower salt content make perfect sense to your taste buds.

Directions

In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. Melt the butter and stir in the seasonings. Pour over the dry ingredient mix and stir until everything is coated. Bake at 250 degrees Fahrenheit for about one hour, stirring the mix on the pan every 10-15 minutes. Let cool and store in airtight container.