A nuts and bolts recipe with homemade ranch seasoning! Everyone at your party will be asking for the recipe. Full of flavor and totally addicting!
Debbie has been making this amazing nuts and bolts with ranch recipe for a long ass time. I think I was probably 16 or so when I first tasted them! Loved them then, love them now and so does everyone else that tries them. Both Debbie and I make these often for a party and its a given for Christmas.
We always have people ask us for the recipe. Always!
Debbie calls it her crack nuts and bolts recipe because you just cant stop eating them. Ever. Till they are gone. And then you still want more. It’s a million times better than any nuts and bolts mix that you can buy in the store and once you see how easy it is to make, you will never buy it again.
Ingredients You Need
You know how some people just pick at their favorite parts of the nuts and bolts mix? Well I’m one of those people and my favorite parts of this one are the chex, life cereal, goldfish and the pretzels, so pretty much every time I make this nuts and bolts recipe, I only make it with chex, life, goldfish and pretzels lol. Smart right?
You can make it with whatever you want. There are lots of gluten free options out there for cereal too! Here are a few options:
- cereals: chex, life, shreddies, cheerios… basically any cereal that doesn’t have any sweetener on them
- pretzels or pretzel sticks
- cheeze its or cheesy goldfish
- bugles or corn chips
- nuts: walnuts, cashews, pecans, peanuts… go for unsalted if you can or they might turn out too salty with the seasoning mix added.
- raisins or dried cranberries – we haven’t tried these but they might be good
- make it spicy with some added chili powder
Homemade Ranch Seasoning
We used to make this recipe with pre-packaged ranch seasoning. However, as you may know, most pre-packaged seasoning has MSG and a bunch of other things I cant pronounce so we started making our own.
We tried a couple recipes and all the recipes said that they would taste exactly like ranch. But they didn’t. There was always something missing.
All the homemade recipes were missing the ‘tang’. At first we thought it was salt, but it was more like a citrus tang. The missing ingredient is citric acid! It’s a naturally occurring acid found in citrus fruits and also a natural preservative. You can find it at health food stores in powdered form or here on amazon.
It’s the key to a tangy ranch dressing!
How to Make Nuts and Bolts
- First make your ranch seasoning. Mix all the herbs, spices, and seasonings together in a mason jar or similar. Give a a good shake to combine.
- Add the oil, measured ranch seasoning, extra dill and garlic powder to a bowl and give it a good whisk to combine. Set aside.
- Add the cereal and pretzels (or whatever combination that you choose) to a large bowl or container. Pour some of the oil mixture over the dry mix and stir really well. Continue to pour and stir in batches until the oil mixture is gone.
- Let the nuts and bots recipe just sit for a while to absorb the oil.
Tips:
- You just have to make sure that you make it at least a couple hours before you are wanting to serve it. Â Even the day before. Â
- It needs to be mixed well a number of times to coat all the goodies in the seasoning really well and the oil needs time to sink in and dry. Â You don’t want an oily mix.Â
But don’t kid yourself, you will be stealing from the bowl before its good and ready.  Mark my words!
Tools You Need:
- BIG Mixing Bowl – as this is a lot of cereal and you need to be able to mix well, you will need a big ass bowl! We love this one because it has a lid AND its pink!
- Cute weck jars – we love these for storing extra ranch seasoning or anything else you like
Other Appetizer Recipes You Might like:
- hot cheese dip with onions and gruyere
- how to create the perfect cheese board
- short rib flatbread pizza
- whiskey beef sliders
If you’ve tried this crack nuts and bolts recipe then don’t forget to rate the recipe and let us know how it turned out in the comments below. We love hearing from you!
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Crack Nuts and Bolts with Homemade Ranch Dressing
Ingredients
FOR THE RANCH SEASONING
- 1 tbsp parsley
- 4 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 2 tsp minced dried onion
- 2 tsp dill weed
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 tsp citrus acid powder (don’t leave out)
FOR THE NUTS AND BOLTS
- 4 tbsp ranch dressing powder
- 1/2 cup olive oil or any vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp dill weed
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 8 cups of cereal and nuts if you want (pretzels, cheerios, chex, life, shreddies, gold fish, cashews….)
Instructions
FOR THE RANCH SEASONING
- First make your ranch seasoning. Mix all the herbs, spices, and seasonings together in a mason jar or similar. Give a a good shake to combine. Taste it.
FOR THE NUTS AND BOLTS
- Add the oil, measured ranch seasoning, extra dill and garlic powder to a bowl and give it a good whisk to combine. Set aside.
- Add the cereal and pretzels (or whatever combination that you choose) to a large bowl or container. Pour some of the oil mixture over the dry mix and stir really well. Continue to pour and stir in batches until the oil mixture is gone.
- Let the nuts and bots recipe just sit for a while to absorb the oil. Let it sit for an hour or so and mix again. Continue this pattern till the mixture starts to get dry and all the pieces are well coated.
Notes
2 tbsp. of this mixture = 1 pkg. hidden valley ranch Â
Angela Phillips says
Where can I find Citrus Acid Powder?
Julie and Debbie says
Hi Angela,
Debbie got citric acid poweder from a health food store. I dont believe its in regular grocery stores, but I think it is fairly easy to find in health food stores. Its worth hunting for. It makes all the difference in this ranch seasoning mix!
Shelley says
Citric acid powder is sold in plastic bottles by Ball for canning, to keep your fruit from going brown. A good source of vitamin C. Available at any place you can buy canning supplies. Menards, Walmart or many supermarkets.
Jessie says
Hi, it said garlic powder in the ingredients and then garlic salt in the directions. Which one is it? Thanks 🙂
Julie and Debbie says
Thanks for pointing that out. I have adjusted the recipe and instructions. Enjoy!
Evelyn says
Question: you don’t bake these like you do most recipes for Nuts and Bolts?
Julie & Debbie says
nope. you do not have to bake them.