Halloween Hangover Trail Mix

November 4, 2017 by Nicole Collins

Halloween Hangovers...

You know what I'm talking about..

I think there are probably 2 types of Halloween hangovers. The first is when you wake up from a night of costume themed partying and way too much “boos”ing. The morning after symptoms include a massive headache and a hankering for something uber greasy and unhealthy. So, really just a standard adult hangover that you wake up with on November 1st.

The second type of hangover applies to adults and children, alike. This Halloween hangover is when you eat more candy in one night than you've eaten all year and you wake up feeling all kinds of icky. The morning after symptoms include being dead tired from being awake all night coming down from a sugar high, a belly ache; and for me, also a nasty headache.

I find myself in scenario 2 every year. I mean, it's kind of inevitable. When I'm sitting with a jumbo bowl of candy in my lap for 3 hours, do you expect me not to eat any?

Don't act like you don't eat one candy bar for every 3 you hand out while you're giving out candy to the kiddos, too.

And for the parents out there that go out trick or treating with the little ones, I know you “inspect” / steal candy from the kids before telling them what's safe to eat. We know the “unsafe candy” goes straight to your belly. You're not fooling anyone. And you, too, wake up with the #halloweenhangover.

Real talk, the Halloween hangover kind of goes on all week. The candy doesn't just disappear, you know.

I feel like every year, Halloween becomes more and more of a bust in my neighborhood. All of the neighbors used to sit outside together on their front porches all night just chatting away in between trick or treaters, and we could be hosting the kiddie crowds for a good 2-3 hours.

But the past 2 years, the neighborhood is almost all dark. Almost nobody hangs out outside. The trick or treater crew has dwindled. And, the festivities are finished in just over an hour.

It's so depressing!

But, it's also a huge problem because that means I have way more leftover candy to eat up. So really, I eat more candy in about 1 week than I do all year. Which means Halloween hangover all week.

This year, I wisened up. I came up with something to make with the leftover candy that we could almost call healthy!

Halloween Hangover Trail Mix!

We all know that the best way to get rid of a hangover is to keep drinking. So, what better way to cure the Halloween hangover than by eating more candy!

This trail mix is the PERFECT way to use up all of the leftover candy floating around your house after Halloween. And, since trail mix is kind of a healthy snack, we've got some good stuff in here to balance out the super sweet and indulgent candy.

You guys know I love my salty sweet combos, and this trail mix definitely follows suit. We've got some mini pretzels and lightly salted cashew halves to bring the salty element to our mix. We've also got some pepitas, which are roasted pumpkin seeds, to give us a little salt while also carrying over the Halloween theme.

For the candy, I used 5 different kinds of mini candies. Reese's, Kit Kats, Almond Joys, Snickers, and Milky Ways all made an appearance in my mix. Since I used the minis, I only needed about 20 pieces of candy, total. I used 4 pieces of each type of candy. And then, I diced them up in to small bites to toss in my mix.

The cool thing is, is you can use whatever type of chocolate candy you like in this! But, I totally recommend using a couple different types of candies, because it's such a fun surprise when you take a bite of the mix to see which type of candy you got.

Then we top it off with some dried banana chips, and we're done. That's it! A one bowl, zero effort snack mix.

Remember when I told you this mix was kind of healthy? I totally meant it!

The only questionable ingredient in this mix is the candy, and really there's such a minimal amount in comparison to everything else, you don't even have to feel bad about it! And, what a fun way to let the kiddos (and you) enjoy the candy they worked so hard far. Let them toss the mix together with their hands in the bowl. (That's what I did, and I sure had fun!)

I know this trail mix is solving a specific problem today; but thankfully, all of this candy is available all year! So, make sure you keep this on your radar for your birthday party mixes, vacation mixes, having a bad day mixes, etc.

Enjoy, and let's snack!

Halloween Hangover Trail Mix Serves: 14- ½ cup servings Print

Ingredients:

2 cups dried banana chips
2 cups mini pretzels
1 cup lightly salted cashew halves
¼ cups pepitas (roasted pumpkin seeds)
2 cups diced chocolate candy bars (about 20 mini candy bars. I used an equal mix of Reese's, Kit Kats, Snickers, Milky Ways, and Almond Joys.)