No-Bake Sweet and Salty Squares

Sweet and salty is one of my favorite combinations. I’m not sure if ‘favorite’ is the right word. Maybe it’s one of my most addictive combinations.

Dangerously addictive. Addictive to the point where I can only buy sweet and salty kettlecorn if I’m having people over, or I’ll eat the whole bag. It’s a dangerous situation.

I haven’t had that stuff around the house in a few months, due to a couple of entire-bag-eating incidents, but alas, I have found my way to make my own sweet and salty snacks…and they’re better than kettlecorn!

I was inspired by the fact that I got some coupons in the mail for free cereal from Attune Foods. Freeorganic cereal. When I made the trek to Whole Foods, I picked up two boxes of the corn flakes, and one box of the brown rice crispies.

The corn flakes were particularly appealing, as they only have 2 ingredients: organic milled corn and sea salt. Organic corn is key because corn is one of the most commonly genetically modified foods out there (soy is the other one you need to worry about, if you’re wondering). Now, as you may know, I’m quite the pancake girl in the morning, but I did grow up eating boxed cereal. I was excited to make something else out of this cereal.

The second best part about these is the fact that they take about 5 minutes of hands-on time! The second best part would be the taste, of course.

They’re easy to make and have a pretty short list of ingredients:

Ingredients:

4 cups of corn flakes
1 cup of dates +1/2 cup boiling water
1t vanilla
1/2 t sea salt
Optional 1 T chia seeds (to add some superfood goodness)

How to:

Place dates and sea salt in a glass container, and pour 1/2 cup of boiling water on top. Let sit 5 minutes
Place dates in food processor, and blend until they’re pretty well broken up
Add all other ingredients and pulse/blend. You don’t want it to be a complete paste, but you want everything pretty broken down
Press into a parchment-lined dish, and refridgerate (you can eat some now if you can’t wait…)
After 1 hour in the fridge, cut into squares

I used an 9″x9″ dish, but really you can use any size, it will just alter how thick they are. I cut them into 2″x2″ squares, but any size is good. Those were the right snack size for me. Also, you can use a cookie cutter to cut them into whatever shape you like!

Don’t say I didn’t warn you that these are addictive! Although, compared to similar snacks they’re pretty darn good given the fiber content, and the fact that there is no refined sugar.