This healthy trail mix recipe is filled with nutritious ingredients like almonds, peanuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, raisins, dried fruit and dark chocolate. The best part is this recipe is easy to customize to your preferences. You’ll love creating your own healthy trail mix!
Related: Chex Mix, Puppy Chow, GORP Mix, 30+ Easy Finger Foods and Protein Balls.
Ingredients
- Raw Nuts – I used raw cashews, macadamia nuts, walnuts and almonds.
- Raw Seeds – I used pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.
- Dried Fruit – I used dried bananas, raisins and dried apricots.
- Yogurt Covered Raisins – For a fun element (add as much fun stuff as you like!)
- Dark Chocolate – I used 82% dark chocolate chips.
- Cinnamon – To season the raw nuts for toasting.
- Nutmeg – To season the raw nuts for toasting.
- Sea Salt – To season the raw nuts for toasting.
Benefits of Trail Mix
- If you have food sensitivities or any special diet in your household, you can customize this mix to your exact preferences and avoid any unwanted ingredients.
- This makes a great lunch box snack or after school snack.
- Trail mix makes a great family tradition to make before camping trips or hikes.
- Antioxidants
- Healthy Fats
- Low Sodium
Instructions
Toast trail mix – You will begin by toasting any raw nuts and seeds. Season them with cinnamon, nutmeg and sea salt or just sea salt for a savory version. Toast them for 10 minutes at 350ºF. After you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool completely.
Mix Ins – Now it’s time to mix in any dried fruit, raisins and chocolate.
Storage – Store the mix in an airtight container for up to a month.
Tips for Making
- Savory additions – Add pretzels, rye crackers, popcorn or pre-roasted nuts (such as peanuts) to your mix. Try adding pistachios or hazelnuts to your next trail mix.
- Sweet additions – Add candy (I love M&Ms or Reese’s Pieces), chocolate covered pretzels or chocolate covered cherries. For dried fruit, try adding coconut flakes, banana chips, mangos or dried blueberries to your mix. In addition to chocolate chips, try white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips.
- Cereal – It’s common to add cereals such as granola or Cheerios to a trail mix. Try our homemade granola or paleo granola recipe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is trail mix actually healthy?
Homemade trail mix can be an unprocessed food made with healthy, nutritious ingredients. Packaged trail mixes may contain more sugar and preservatives. Trail mix is often based with nuts and is not a low-calorie food.
What else is trail mix called?
Trail mix is sometimes called gorp mix in the U.S. In Europe, it is often called scroggin or schmogle.
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Ingredients
- 3 cups raw nuts
- 2 cups raw seeds
- 2 cups dried fruit
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
Instructions
- Toast trail mix – You will begin by toasting any raw nuts and seeds. Season them with cinnamon, nutmeg and sea salt or just sea salt for a savory version. Toast them for 10 minutes at 350ºF. After you remove them from the oven, allow them to cool completely.
- Mix Ins – Now it's time to mix in any dried fruit, raisins and chocolate.
- Storage – Store the mix in an airtight container for up to a month.
Notes
- Savory additions – Add pretzels, rye crackers, popcorn or pre-roasted nuts (such as peanuts) to your mix. Try adding pistachios or hazelnuts to your next trail mix.
- Sweet additions – Add candy (I love M&Ms or Reese’s Pieces), chocolate covered pretzels or chocolate covered cherries. For dried fruit, try adding coconut flakes, banana chips, mangos or dried blueberries to your mix. In addition to chocolate chips, try white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips.
- Cereal – It’s common to add cereals such as granola or Cheerios to a trail mix. Try our homemade granola or paleo granola recipe.
Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
This would be great to put together for my kids school snacks!
Love this recipe!
Love this – why have I never tried making my own mix?! Going to try to replicate my favorite Trader Joe’s mix!
Looks so good!
Love it!
Love this. The German Word for this is Studentenfutter (student fodder). Because the nuts are good for your brain I suppose? The store version only contains raisins. I will try to mix it myself with different dried fruit, thank you for the idea!
That is funny! In Belgium we say “studentenhaver”. Haver = oat!
Love the way you can make this so many different ways! Looks delicious.
Such a great thing to have around the house for after school snacks!
So many great ways to make this recipe!! I love that it’s customizable.