SunButter Muddy Buddies! A healthier take on this favorite cereal snack with sunflower seed butter, plus options for my vegan, gluten-free, and paleo friends!
THIS POST IS SPONSORED BY SUNBUTTER.
On the list of Most Difficult To Stop Eating Snacks, this stuff is at the tippity top. It also ranks quite high on Most Likely To Hide From Housemates and the How Is This So Good? snack lists. So this is a recipe with a reputation.
If you’ve never tried muddy buddies (or puppy chow as some call it), oh friend are you in for a treat life changing experience. And if you’ve never tried making muddy buddies with SunButter, get ready for your muddy buddy love to go next level.
Because you know how peanut butter can sometimes be too PEANUT BUTTER-y, overpowering all the other flavors involved? But almond butter can be too NOT peanut butter-y at all? Well the flavor of sunflower seed butter is that perfect happy medium – nutty (even though it’s nut-free!) but not in your face. You know it’s in there, you know you like it, but it doesn’t have to shout at you.
And that is why SunButter is our BBFF (best buttery friend forever).
Like I’m pretty sure this soft serve is at least 97% to blame, but my love for SunButter has been aggressive lately. The almond butter has been pushed to the back of my nut/seed butter shelf, while SunButter keeps finding it’s way to the very front for blending and topping and all spoon-in-jar-eating purposes.
So I’m pretty jazzed to be teaming up with them again to bring you another recipe featuring this scrumptious seed butter stuff!
To healthy up this back-of-the-cereal-box classic just a little and give you lots of vegan/gluten-free/paleo options, you’ve got some choices to make…
The cereal. Traditionally muddy buddies are made with Rice Chex cereal, which is gluten-free and debatably vegan. But I get it, not ideal on ingredients. So instead try:
- Barbara’s Bakery Oat Crunch. Right shape. Better ingredients. But not gluten-free.
- Barbara’s Bakery Puffins Cereal. Right shape. Vegan. Gluten-free. A little more fragile, so you may end up with more muddy half buddies.
- One Degree Organics Oat Os. Vegan. Gluten-free. Great ingredients. Wrong shape, but who cares.
- Coconut Flakes Cereal. Vegan. Gluten-free. Paleo. Great organic ingredients (coconut meat, coconut water, palm starch). Wrong shape, but again not important.
- Nuts/seeds/coconut flakes. Vegan. Gluten-free. Paleo. Obviously the texture will be quite different than most muddy buddies, but it works for a whole/real foods option.
Really any kind of unflavored cereal will work, those are just my top suggestions.
The chocolate. I used my favorite Enjoy Life dark chocolate chips, which are vegan and paleo. But any brand and percentage of chocolate chips you like is fine.
SunButter! You haven’t muddy buddy-ed until you’ve muddy buddy-ed with SunButter. I used their organic variety here, which is unsweetened.
The powder coating. Okay this is where things get a smidge tricky, but I’ve gotcha covered:
- Powdered sugar. I know I know, not a “health” food. But sometimes it’s worth it.
- Arrowroot starch. It won’t add the same sweet flavor as powdered sugar, but since the chocolate is already sweet it give them that powder-coated appearance and won’t taste bad. It does dissolve faster than powdered sugar, so apply just before serving.
- Coconut flour. Sounds strange, but I’ve used this for a dusted on mock powdered sugar before and it works here too. Again not sweet, but you hardly taste it and it doesn’t dissolve like the arrowroot.
- Protein powder. Not my personal favorite because I think most of them taste well…awful, but vanilla protein powder would work.
- Powdered erythritol. If you want a sugar-free option.
Sorry to go all link crazy on you there, but you needed to know all the options. So now nothing stands between you and actualizing your SunButter Muddy Buddy dreams.
This recipe is super simple – 5 ingredients, 10 minutes, no baking, DONE.
To start, melt the SunButter with the chocolate chips. Stir in vanilla extract. And dump on top of a BIG bowl of cereal.
Mix that all up. And probably make a mess doing it.
Toss with the powdered coating or your choosing.
It’s easiest to do in a plastic bag, extra air NOT removed.
And then get snackin!
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SunButter Muddy Buddies! A healthier take on this favorite cereal snack with sunflower seed butter, plus options for my vegan, gluten-free, and paleo friends!
Ingredients
- 6 cups cereal (see post above for recommendations)*
- 1 cup Organic SunButter
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar (see post above for alternate options)**
Instructions
- Melt the chocolate chips with the SunButter.
- Stir in the vanilla extract.
- In a large mixing bowl, gently stir the cereal with the melted chocolate mixture until evenly coated.
- Transfer to a plastic bag and add the powdered sugar. Shake to coat.
- Chill 2-3 hours, then enjoy!
- Store in an airtight container in the fridge.
Notes
*Use a mixture of nuts, seeds, and coconut for paleo
**Use powdered coconut milk or arrowroot for paleo
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/2 cup
- Calories: 312
- Sugar: 14g
- Fat: 20g
- Saturated Fat: 5g
- Carbohydrates: 36g
- Fiber: 4g
- Protein: 6g
Keywords: snack, vegan, gluten-free, no bake, easy, paleo, chocolate, kid friendly
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Thank you SunButter for sponsoring this post!
This stuff is so nostalgic!!! I love all the customizable options. May have to try them all for research purposes 😉 We have a local company in Chicago that makes gourmet puppy chow called “WOW CHOW” and I’m giving away a few bags in my IG giveaway over the weekend!
GOURMET PUPPY CHOW!?!? Omg that sounds amazing, I’ve gotta check that out. Can you imagine an entire store dedicated to nothing but puppy chow of every imaginable flavor…the dream😮 I know I haven’t made it in forever either, but so many childhood memories with this yummy stuff🤗
Not for Me!…I like it better when fruit is the main substitute ingredient on your recipes….thx. for sharing. ❤️❤️ Your chocolate muffins recipe amon many others! 🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗
I respect that, and there are plenty of other fruity ones to choose from! Not every recipe will be for everybody😊
Thx. Natalie 🤗🤗🤗🤗 You and your recipes r awesome!👍👍👍👍👍
I was literally just thinking last night how I’ve actually been going through more sunbutter lately than peanut butter, which isn’t typical of me! Love this recipe idea!! 🙂
Hahaha!! Me too recently, the PB and AB in my pantry is starting to get jealous😂 You should definitely try it in muddy buddy form…ridiculously good😋
Would this recipe work with other nut butters?
Yep, absolutely!
Omg, these look straight up dangerous! Like, I’m-gonna-eat-the-whole-bag dangerous, lol! I’ve actually never had muddy buddies, or puppy chow. I much prefer the title muddy buddies because everytime I hear the word puppy chow or see a blogger say it, I think dog food, so that never appeals to me, LOL! But, THIS, this appeals to me. I mean…crunchy cereal, nut butter, dark chocolate and powdered sugar, how the heck can it NOT be appealing! I know people tend to freak out when I use powdered sugar sometimes, but dang, it’s GOOD stuff and sometimes is the needed ingredient. I would definitely much prefer sugar to starch or coconut flour but I’m so impressed with all of the options you gave, that way nobody can complain or ask the always “what can I sub with….?” question, haha. I’m now craving these after visualizing the yummy crunchy dark chocolate thing going on, but my head is pounding from eating a gingerbread latte, cake and brownie bites already today, oops! Maybe these could be my dinner, bahaha!
Um gingerbread latte?? I love you for drinking gingerbread things in august but I hate you for NOT MAKING ME ONE TOO🙄 I kid, but seriously that sounds like a deliciously sweets overload day🤗 Yeah maybe you don’t need powdered sugar to top it all off😂 But oh man you nailed it, this stuff is seriously addictive. And idk where the “puppy chow” name came from but um no. Like I love dogs, but the kibble association is too strong in my mind too. No sub questions on this one…yet. But I know you know the challenge of trying to guess every possible question and answer it ahead of time😆
This is exactly what I needed in my life! I can’t wait to try 🙂
Oh yes, your life has definitely been missing these🤗🤗 Enjoy Elizabeth!
What a great holiday gift suggestion! Thanks for another great recipe, Natalie. 😘
I hope you give it a try, although I’m warning you it’s kinda hard to give any away🙈
Love this recipe!!! Gonna have to make it, looks yummy!! Also in the directions for this recipe, at # 4, you say “Transfer to a plastic baD instead of baG, just thought I’d tell you that.
Ah thanks for catching that, I will fix it right now! Hope you try and love them 🙂
Your Welcome.