These Sweet & Salty Popcorn Bars with Chocolate Drizzle are loaded with all kinds of stuff from the chip aisle — Chicago mix popcorn, corn chips, pretzels, and honey roasted peanuts — in a gooey peanut butter-marshmallow mixture, then drizzled with chocolate and sprinkled with M&Ms. Decadent and delicious.
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You’re going to love these
Trash bars. Other names for these popcorn bars include trash bars or junk bars. Because they’re loaded with all the things from the junk food aisle. So if you’re looking for sinfully naughty bars, you found ‘em!
Junk food paradise. Instead of bringing chips AND pretzels AND peanuts AND popcorn AND candy to the party, you can just toss all the delicious junk food together into this one crispy popcorn bar! With just one bite, you can get all the sweet and salty flavors of the chip aisle and the candy aisle.
Sweet and salty. If you love to balance a bite of something salty with something sweet (like fries and ice cream!), these chewy bars will hit all your cravings. The salty and sweet popcorn mix paves the way for more saltiness from the pretzels and Fritos, and more sweetness from the peanuts, chocolate, and marshmallow mixture.
Easy. These no-bake popcorn bars are so easy to make. Just rip open a bunch of bags of popcorn, pretzels, chips, and peanuts, microwave marshmallows and peanut butter, mix it all together, then drizzle it with chocolate.
Create your own. If you like the general idea of these popcorn bars, but there are other things you’d rather have in them, go ahead and swap out ingredients for something you love. Maybe buttered popcorn will taste better to you. Or you’d rather have dried fruit instead of peanuts. Or cookies instead of Fritos. Or you want to skip the peanut butter in the marshmallow mixture. Go for it! Just keep the ratio of 6 cups of “stuff” to 4 cups of marshmallows.
Ingredient Notes
Chicago mix popcorn. Chicago mix popcorn is that combo of cheddar and caramel popcorn. If you prefer to use plain popcorn or kettle corn or some other kind of popcorn in your bars, you definitely should!
Fritos. Fritos provide even more crunchy, salty, savory goodness against the sweetness in these bars. But you can also use potato chips or another salty crunchy snack.
Honey roasted peanuts. Peanuts and popcorn— classic combo. But any kind of nut will be great, like almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, hazelnuts, cashews…
Pretzels. You can use slightly broken pretzel knots or rods. I’ve also used Pepperidge Farm Goldfish pretzels in this recipe, which are also really cute.
Peanut butter. You can use any kind of nut butter you like in the marshmallow mixture.
White chocolate and dark chocolate drizzle. I used both white and dark chocolate because they each bring a different flavor to the party. I also like the white canvas for the colorful M&Ms. But use what you love — you can even use butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips, or sea salt caramel chips (yes, that’s a thing!).
M&Ms. M&Ms add so much festive color and crunch to these fun popcorn bars. During holidays, you can use the seasonal colors of M&Ms, or use mini peanut butter cups, toffee chips, Reese’s Pieces, sprinkles, crushed up cookies, coconut, nuts...
How to make Sweet & Salty Popcorn Bars with Chocolate Drizzle
Spray 9x 13 baking dish with cooking spray.
In one large bowl, combine the popcorn, crushed corn chips, honey roasted peanuts, and crushed pretzels.
In a microwave-safe dish, add the peanut butter, butter, and marshmallows. Heat on high for 30 seconds. Stir. Heat for another 30 seconds. Stir until smooth and all the marshmallows have melted, heating in additional 10-second intervals, if needed.
Pour the peanut butter marshmallow mixture over the popcorn mixture and stir until well-combined. Firmly press the popcorn and marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan with the back of a spatula or your hand.
Melt the dark chocolate and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Continue to heat for 10-second intervals until it is completely melted. If the chocolate is too thick to drizzle, add small amounts of coconut oil until it reaches the desired consistency.
Drizzle the dark chocolate over the popcorn bars.
Melt the white chocolate and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Continue to heat for 10-second intervals until it is completely melted. If the chocolate is too thick to drizzle, add small amounts of coconut oil until it reaches the desired consistency.
Drizzle the white chocolate over the dark chocolate.
Quickly, before the chocolate sets, sprinkle sea salt and ¾ cup M&Ms over the entire pan of popcorn bars.
Let cool completely. If it’s a warm day or your kitchen is warm, place your pan of bars in the refrigerator to set.
Cut into small bars. A little bite goes a long way with these :).
Store covered at room temperature.
Sweet & Salty Popcorn Bars with Chocolate Drizzle
Ingredients
- 3 cups Chicago mix popcorn
- 1 cup crushed Fritos
- 1 cup honey roasted peanuts
- 1 cup broken pretzels
- ½ cup peanut butter
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 4 cups mini marshmallows
- ½ cup chocolate chips
- ½ cup white chocolate chips
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil, divided
- 1 cup M&Ms
- sea salt
Instructions
- Spray 9x 13 baking dish with cooking spray.
- In one large bowl, combine the popcorn, crushed corn chips, honey roasted peanuts, and crushed pretzels.
- In a microwave-safe dish, add the peanut butter, butter, and marshmallows. Heat on high for 30 seconds. Stir. Heat for another 30 seconds. Stir until smooth and all the marshmallows have melted, heating in additional 10-second intervals, if needed.
- Pour the peanut butter marshmallow mixture over the popcorn mixture and stir until well-combined. Firmly press the popcorn and marshmallow mixture into the prepared pan with the back of a spatula or your hand.
- Melt the dark chocolate and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Continue to heat for 10-second intervals until it is completely melted. If the chocolate is too thick to drizzle, add small amounts of coconut oil until it reaches the desired consistency.
- Drizzle the dark chocolate over the popcorn bars.
- Melt the white chocolate and ½ teaspoon coconut oil in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Continue to heat for 10-second intervals until it is completely melted. If the chocolate is too thick to drizzle, add small amounts of coconut oil until it reaches the desired consistency.
- Drizzle the white chocolate over the dark chocolate.
- Quickly, before the chocolate sets, sprinkle sea salt and ¾ cup M&Ms over the entire pan of popcorn bars.
- Let cool completely. If it’s a warm day or your kitchen is warm, place your pan of bars in the refrigerator to set.
- Cut into small bars. A little bite goes a long way with these :). Store covered at room temperature.
Nutrition
Chicago mix popcorn is that deliciously addictive combination of caramel popcorn and cheddar popcorn. They say it was created when customers of Garrett Popcorn Shops in Chicago started mixing individual bags of caramel and cheddar popcorn together, so the Garretts started doing it for them.
Chicago mix popcorn was actually the inspiration behind these bars. I took each flavor profile —- sweet and salty — then ran with it and added even more of each. So I wandered down the chip aisle and grabbed pretzels, Fritos, and honey roasted peanuts. Then down the sweet side of the store came the white and dark chocolate and M&Ms. Not only for sweetness, but to add some color. The peanut butter in the marshmallow mixture was brought in to tamp down the sweetness. Same with the sea salt.
MY KITCHEN ESSENTIALS
Pyrex Measuring Cup Set
These measuring cups are reason I still have fingerprints. I can go back and forth from the microwave with hot bubbling marshmallows, chocolate, whatever and the handles stay cool the whole time.
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