Easter Trail Mix

Camping season is quickly approaching, and we recently took our first road trip of the season.

Amid all the excitement, getting ready for our last Winter Camping in Algonquin Provincial Park excursion of the year, I realized two things:

1. Easter was coming up. FAST... and I hadn’t gotten around to actually posting my recipe for homemade Easter Trail Mix.

2. OH CRAP, I never did get around to posting the recipes for Valentine’s Day Trail Mix and St Patrick’s Day trail mix that we’d photographed a couple months earlier.

Well, now it’s just a few days till Easter weekend. Not much I can do about the missed holidays (Let’s just say I’m WAY on the ball for next year?), but now I’m going to share that Easter Snack Mix recipe!

While it may not be obvious - on account of the EPIC procrastination! - we have a blast designing different homemade trail mix recipes.

Our first trail mix recipe posted here required a bit of grace when it came to meeting the definition of “trail mix”. It was our S'Mores Trail Mix, which was more of a sweet snack mix, than a traditional trail mix.

Since then, I’ve tried to stick a little closer to making relatively healthy trail mix recipes. Well, at least trail mixes that have more healthy ingredients than not, and would be suitable for bringing on a trail or road trip!

Pumpkin Spice Trail Mix, Thanksgiving Trail Mix, Halloween Trail Mix, and Christmas Trail Mix are our seasonal recipes, with Caffeinated Trail Mix being a year round favourite.

For this Easter Trail Mix, I knew I’d have to have a LITTLE more chocolate than usual - it’s an EASTER mix, after all!

Beyond that, I wanted to go for a more muted, pastel colour scheme, some form of egg shaped food, and everything had to taste good together.

It was a tall order, but we LOVE the final result - and hope you will, too!

Ingredients

This recipe uses fairly simple ingredients. While one is seasonal, you should be able to find it - and everything else - in pretty much any larger grocery store.

Personally, we got everything we needed with one stop at Bulk Barn. (No relationship to report or anything, we’re just big fans of finding a bit of everything, in one place, with it all being good quality and reasonably priced!)

Anyway - as always - I have a few ingredient notes for you:

Blanched Almonds

Due to the health benefits of nuts, I try to include some form of them in any trail mix I make.

In this case, I chose to go with whole blanched almonds. I like the flavour and texture, and they just worked really well for an Easter themed trail mix.

They’re off-white, which works well with the colour palette, the flavour works well with the other ingredients, and hey - if you squint a bit, they kinda look like eggs!

I usually buy unsalted nuts, and allow the salt to come from the pumpkin seeds and/or pepitas.

Anyway, if whole almonds aren’t your thing, slivered almonds, sliced almonds, or even macadamia nuts are good options to swap them out for.

Mini Eggs

IMHO, every otherwise healthy homemade trail mix recipe needs a bit of chocolate to balance things out... and that goes double for an Easter trail mix.

I like using Cadbury Mini eggs, because I’m a big fan of them in general, and they work well with the mix.

I’d love to say that Eggies are a great alternative, but 12 years in the USA really put me off anything Hershey. Chocolate isn’t supposed to be grainy!

Pumpkin Seeds & Pepitas

Usually I’ll choose either pumpkin seeds (the whole seed, a larger, flat, white product) or pepitas (just the inside part of a pumpkin seed, a smaller green product) when designing trail mix recipes.

In this case, I used them both. I like the actual pumpkin seeds for the same reason I like the whole blanched almonds, and the pepitas brought some nice colour to the mix.

Depending on what I have available, I’ll usually get ONE of these two ingredients salted, and the other not.

You could get both salted, I just find that the trail mix ends up a little saltier than I like, if I used both salted pepitas and salted pumpkin seeds.

I don’t have a great substitution recommendation for the pumpkin seeds, but if you can’t find the pepitas... I suppose shelled sunflower seeds would work.

Just note: Because of their size, they’re likely to settle in the bottom of your mix.

Dried Apricot

I’ve seen dried apricot in 3 different formats: whole apricots, sliced apricots, and chopped.

IMHO, sliced or chopped works best for this Easter Trail Mix - and trail mix recipes in general, really. Whole are just a bit too big for a trail mix, IMHO.

If you only have whole dried apricots, you can chop them up - but they’ll be sticky until the cut edges dry out a little.

If you’re not into dried apricot, I could see banana chips being a great option for a substitute. It would still work with the other ingredients, and fit the colour scheme.

Coconut Chips

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I see coconut as being a very “Easter” thing. Maybe it’s all the times I’ve tinted coconut flakes to serve as a “grass” base for various Easter treats?

You know, Rice Krispie Treat “nests” with mini eggs, my Mini Easter Pavlovas, etc?

Anyway, I love the look of these big dried coconut chips, but feel free to sub whatever type of coconut flakes you like / have available.

White Chocolate Chips

Like I said, any trail mix recipe should have a bit of chocolate. With this being an Easter recipe, I figured it only appropriate to add a second form of chocolate to the mix.

In this batch, I was only able to get mini white chocolate chips - definitely not ideal, as they tend to settle on the bottom of the bag.

So, when possible, aim to get regular sized white chocolate chips.

In terms of substitutions, butterscotch chips and peanut butter chips work well, both in terms of flavour and commitment to the Easter aesthetic.

Personally, I’d prioritize butterscotch over peanut butter for this particular mix, but you do you!

IMHO, dark chocolate chunks and/or dark chocolate chips are too dark to work with the Easter theme here.

How to Make Easter Trail Mix

The full recipe is in the printable recipe card at the end of this post, here is the visual walk through:

In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients.

Storage

Transfer to an airtight container - a large Mason jar or large Ziplock bag - for storage, or portion out into smaller containers.

We’ll usually measure ½ cup amounts into small Ziplock snack bags. This recipe makes about 8 Cups - 16 of the ½ cup servings.

Either way, store in a sealed container at room temperature - out of direct sunlight - for up to 3 months.

More Camping Snack Recipes

Looking for great ideas to cook on a campfire, bring on a road trip, enjoy while RVing? Here's a few of our favorite camping recipes to start with!

Apple Fritter Bread Pudding
Basic Ground Beef Jerky
Best Marshmallows for Camping
Buffalo Chicken Dip
Campfire Cheddar Queso
Easy Campfire Nachos - 2 Ways!
Campfire Walking Tacos
Cheddar Jalapeno Cornbread
Fire Roasted Spiced Nuts
Halloween Trail Mix
Homemade Mushroom Jerky
Hot Chocolate Mix [Protein Powder Mix]
Jalapeno Cheddar Bannock
Jalapeno Chicken Jerky
Maple Cinnamon Apple Chips
Maple Snow Taffy
No Bake Cornflake Cookies
No Bake S'Mores Bars
Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies
Pepperoni Jerky
Pumpkin Spice Trail Mix
Roast Chestnuts on an Open Fire
Rosemary & Blueberry Beef Jerky
Smoky Campfire Brie with Maple & Rosemary
S'Mores Board
S'Mores Trail Mix
Thanksgiving Trail Mix
Tofu Jerky, 2 Ways
Traditional Bannock

Be sure to check out our other Camping Recipes, including Camping Desserts, Camping Snacks, Make-Ahead Camping Mix Recipes, and a ton of delicious Camping Main Dish Recipes.

Also, we had SO much fun designing gourmet jerky recipes for our camping trips, we started a whole new blog for them! Check out Dried & Tasty for all kinds of fun recipes to make in your food dehydrator!