Muddy Buddies. Puppy Chow. Whatever you call it, we all know it’s highly addictive. (And *gasp*, if you’ve never made them, you absolutely must–we have a recipe for the old-school version over here.)
So what do you do when you’ve got a yearning for Muddy Buddies, but either a) you don’t have any Chex and don’t really want to put on a bra to leave the house or b) you  keep buying Chex for things like Muddy Buddies, but no one will ever eat them if they’re not covered in peanut butter, chocolate, and powdered sugar (or coconut and caramelly butter stuff), so you have, like, 3 stale boxes of cereal in your house and you don’t want to add a fourth?
You make it with popcorn.
That’s right–you take the world’s most addictive treat and then make it with the second most addictive treat. Plus, if you use microwave popcorn, you’ve got that whole sweet and salty thing going on. It’s really hard to go wrong here.
I pulled out my friend Ashton’s book Party Popcorn (she’s the wonder behind Something Swanky) to see if she had a recipe for Muddy Buddy Popcorn and, because there’s a recipe for just about any kind of popcorn you can imagine, she sure did. So I made it. And it was everything I hoped it would be.
You’re going to need 8 cups of popped popcorn (about 1 standard bag of microwave popcorn), peanut butter, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar. You can also add vanilla, but it will cause the chocolate to seize up and then life gets complicated, so I’d just leave it out (or if you happen to have alcohol-free vanilla, you could use that. I don’t think it makes that big of a difference overall.)
Pour the popcorn into a large bowl, removing any unpopped kernels. Set aside.
Place the powdered sugar in a gallon-size Ziploc bag. Set aside.
Place the peanut butter and chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl (a cereal bowl is fine). Heat for 30 seconds, stir, then heat for an additional 20 seconds at a time until the mixture is melted and smooth.
Pour the chocolate-peanut butter mixture over the popcorn. Using a large rubber spatula, gently stir to coat.
Spoon the coated popcorn into the bag with the powdered sugar. Seal the bag and shake until the popcorn is evenly coated in powdered sugar.
Once the popcorn is coated, serve immediately. Store up to 2 days in an airtight container.
PrintMuddy Buddy Popcorn
Ingredients
- 8 cups popped popcorn
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Pour the popcorn into a large bowl, removing any unpopped kernels. Set aside.
- Place the powdered sugar in a gallon-size Ziploc bag. Set aside.
- Place the peanut butter and chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl (a cereal bowl is fine). Heat for 30 seconds, stir, then heat for an additional 20 seconds at a time until the mixture is melted and smooth.
- Pour the chocolate-peanut butter mixture over the popcorn. Using a large rubber spatula, gently stir to coat.
- Spoon the coated popcorn into the bag with the powdered sugar. Seal the bag and shake until the popcorn is evenly coated in powdered sugar.
- Once the popcorn is coated, serve immediately. Store up to 2 days in an airtight container.