Hilary Pollack
Sometimes, you see a Catalina Crunchy Muddy Buddies recipe on TikTok and think “I’m going to do that just because I can.”
Calling all people who eat cereal covered in a combination of chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar: Today is the day I found out that this concoction, which I’ve always known as Muddy Buddies (I could never get behind the term “puppy chow,” popular in the Midwest, since I don’t really want to eat dog food?) is also called “monkey munch,” “muddy munch,” “reindeer chow,” or “doggy bag” — or, at least, that’s what Wikipedia seems to believe. Wikipedia also calls it “candy”; IDK about that. Like, why is it candy and not just a dessert or sugary snack? I’m not buying it. But yes, traditionally, it is not the healthiest thing you can eat.
As I’ve previously mentioned in the Eater archive, I am a Chex Mix enthusiast. We are a Chex family; it was an omnipresent cereal in my childhood cabinets and to this day, my dad feeds individual Rice Chex to our 15-year-old dog, Reginald, because he “likes the sound it makes when he crunches on it.” This is a particularly strange breed of boomer ASMR, I’d agree, but my dad loves it, Reginald loves it, and I respect it.
At my big age, I should probably not regularly be eating Muddy Buddies, but I’m gonna be real with you: Alongside Cheddar snack mix, Muddy Buddies are one of my gas-station-snack go-tos. They are the perfect synthesis of crunchy, creamy, sweet, and salty, a truly elevated snacking experience. It occurred to me recently when munching on a bowl of Catalina Crunch’s extremely popular low-sugar, high-fiber, high-protein cereal that Muddy Buddying should be a verb; just as you can Caesar anything or French onion anything, you can take any food, or certainly any cereal, coat it in chocolate, peanut butter, and powdered sugar, and render it Muddy Buddied. I consulted The Universe — aka TikTok — to see if people were making “healthy” Muddy Buddies out of Catalina Crunch, and indeed, they were. So I was like, hey, I’m going to do that right now as an exercise of free will.
Realizing you might need some context for Catalina Crunch, I shall explain: I remember, albeit a bit vaguely, the first time I heard about this allegedly very good “healthy” cereal; I spotted it in a tour of one of the Kardashian/Jenner’s pantries which I was probably hate-watching but also did spark some product intrigue — a broken clock is right twice a day, after all, and sometimes even the world’s most annoying influencers have good recs. There was also rampant speculation that Kylie Jenner’s infamous 2018 tweet about finally having tried cereal with milk was referring to Catalina Crunch. (Anyway, I don’t eat the cereal very often but I have become a big fan of the brand’s Chex-Mix-esque Cheddar snack mix.)
Hilary Pollack
All the ingredients one needs to Muddy Buddy anything
Along the lines of the popular Netflix series Is It Cake?, I decided to perform a home experiment of Does It Muddy Buddy?, with my prediction being that, yes, Catalina Crunch Muddy Buddies probably taste virtually identical to traditional Muddy Buddies. Some people are very sensitive to the taste of monkfruit and stevia, both of which are in Catalina Crunch cereals (although the brand did just roll out “taste improvements” this spring, and is also instituting a Love Every Bite guarantee where you can get a reimburse within seven days of purchasing its products if you’re unhappy with them for any reason). For the people who have a bag of Catalina Crunch, have no plans to return it, and want to add some jazz and pizzazz, Muddy Buddying it could be the solution to enjoying its protein and fiber benefits, albeit at the cost of sacrificing its low-sugar or no-sugar status. Anyway, that’s what I did. Please enjoy some imagery I took with my digital camera from 2010.
Hilary Pollack
I decided, last minute, to add a little vanilla extract. Why not? Adds a little je ne sais quoi…
Hilary Pollack
Coating the Catalina Crunch in the “mud.”
Hilary Pollack
Buddy-ifying the mix in a bag.
Hilary Pollack
Voila: Muddy Buddies, but with more protein and fiber and perhaps a tiny bit less sugar.
The verdict: Yes, you can make higher-protein, higher-fiber Muddy Buddies using Catalina Crunch. Something I really enjoy about Muddy Buddies is that when you’re making them (it?) at home, you can really operate fully intuitively in terms of the amount of each ingredient to add. Sure, there are some common guidelines, but if you use more or less chocolate or peanut butter, what’s the worst that can happen? It’s pretty much guaranteed to taste good.
That being said, here’s the recipe (using that term loosely):
Ingredients
2 tablespoons salted butter
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Justin’s honey peanut butter)
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
About 3 cups of Honey Graham Catalina Crunch cereal
A lot of powdered sugar (I used about 1⁄3 of a cup)
The “recipe”
Add the butter, chocolate chips, and peanut butter to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for about 45 seconds. Use a spoon to stir until smooth. Add the vanilla extract. Using a spatula, add the cereal and mix to coat it completely in the chocolate mixture. Dump a bunch of the now-chocolaty cereal in a sealable plastic bag (you know, like a Ziplock). Dump a bunch of powdered sugar on top and shake profusely until all of the little cereal pieces are coated in a beautiful dusting of sugar. Ta-da!
Hilary Pollack
The beauty of Muddy Buddies is that they don’t stick to your fingers (… because they’re covered in sugar)
If you are a real sugar-hater (or can’t have it for health reasons), you can also follow the lead of TikTokers who are making Muddy Buddies using Catalina Crunch, sugar-free chocolate, and powdered monkfruit. I will not be doing this because I like things to taste as good as possible, but the point is, you could.
Enjoy your free will! I certainly do.
Catalina Crunch cereal is available at Catalina Crunch.
