Slow Cooker Oriental Snack Mix

This salty and slightly sweet Oriental Snack Mix is made by mixing soy sauce, garlic, chow mein noodles, cashews and cereal together in your slow cooker for a few hours. Nobody will believe something like this came from your slow cooker!

I’m not sure exactly when this recipe for oriental snack mix showed up on the side of the Quaker Oat Squares box, but it became a staple in our house for snack time and road trips not too long afterwards. It’s funny how a recipe as simple as this can make you so nostalgic. Flavors and smells are just so powerful.  

My mom and I would always make this snack mix together. I’d marvel at the way the oil and soy sauce mixed together and separated in little lava lamp blobs while she laid the cereal out on a cookie sheet. Then I’d be instructed to “carefully” pour the liquid “evenly” over the top, inevitably dump most of it in one spot, and Mom would graciously tell me not to worry – it would all spread out as she stirred it. (It never did – but the “special” flavor-heavy cereal squares I’d baptized with soy sauce became something to be sought after and savored.)  

Fast forward to my first months away at college, and I’ll never forget the squeal of joy I had when I discovered she’d sent me an entire care package of this snack mix! (I’m getting kinda teary-eyed thinking about just how much that little taste of home meant to this homesick Texan away for the first time at school in Colorado.)  I think I shared a tiny bit with my grandmother who lived upstairs, chowed down on ton while playing video games studying, and saved the last half a bag for almost another 6 months just because I didn’t want it to be gone.  

Mom eventually sent me the recipe, but it’s really just not the same when Mom doesn’t make it with love. (Why is that?). I always manage to burn this one in my oven (due to forgetting about stirring it every 10 minutes), so when I saw a few recipes for Chex Mix in the slow cooker, I thought this would be a great recipe to adapt! This one turns out just as great as the oven version as long as you remember to stir it every hour or so, and let it fully cool before bagging up. It’s especially easy if you use a plastic slow-cooker liner because you can just take that out of the crock pot when it’s time to stir and gently shake it around. Enjoy! 

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Slow Cooker Oriental Snack Mix

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• Author: Stephanie Powers
• Prep Time: 5
• Cook Time: 180
• Total Time: 185

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Description

A sweet and salty oriental snack mix made in your slow cooker!

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Ingredients

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• Box of Quaker oat squares
• 3 oz can of chow mein noodles
• 1 cup cashews or peanuts
• 1/3 cup veg. oil
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tsp. garlic powder (not garlic salt!)
• 1 tsp. onion powder

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Instructions

1. Add a slow cooker liner to your slow cooker.
2. Add in cereal, cashews, and chow mein noodles.
3. Combine remaining ingredients (vegetable oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, and onion powder) in small bowl.
4. Quickly pour over cereal mixture in slow cooker.
5. Gently stir to coat evenly.
6. Cook on low for 3 hours, stirring at the 1 hour, 2 hour, and 2.5 hour mark to keep it from burning. (I like to use the liner to lift out all the mixture and gently shake it around in the bag so I have more room.)
7. Remove from slow cooker and spread out on parchment or a cookie sheet to completely cool.
8. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. (If it lasts that long…)

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Notes

• Gluten-free: This is definitely not gluten-free, but you could sub: gf soy sauce, a mix of rice/corn chex for the cereal, and pretzels for the chow mein noodles. I’d also add in a teaspoon of brown sugar to the oil to make up for the slight sweet you’d be missing from the Quaker oat squares.
• Vegetarian/vegan: This is vegan if you use vegan soy sauce.

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Nutrition

• Serving Size: 12

 What’s one recipe that always brings you memories of your childhood?