Inexpensive Cocoa Rice Crispy Treats

In winter 2023, I earned a free product at my local Kroger so I picked the 17 ounce bag of Malt-O-Meal® Cocoa Dyno-Bites® Cereal. This is similar to but not identical to crispy rice cereals you may be familiar with, but we'll discuss that in a moment. Today I want to share how I tested them because one of those ways was as an ingredient in rice crispy treats for two of the three people in my family. Since this was free, I picked the two other additional ingredients to be less expensive as well so I included Kroger brand mini marshmallows and on sale Blue Bonnet margarine. That is all it takes to make goodie in time for Rice Krispies Treat Day on September 18th.

The Malt-O-Meal® Cocoa Dyno-Bites® Cereal on its own had a good cocoa scent to it, it was not puffed but flat crispy rice, and as you can see these are tiny pieces.  They were crunchy and had an expected amount of chocolatey flavor when eaten solo.

I used the recipe on the back of the mini marshmallows to make the treats and the results were too marshmallowly for our preference but still good. Not only were they too sticky but the sweet of the marshmallows really hurt the intensity of the cocoa krispies. Your preference will vary so experiment. Since these are lower priced than big brand named versions, you can afford to do so. Not only that, but the bag is resealable, actually resealable as you can see in our final photo below.

Given the price, the ingredients, the crunch, and the flavor, I would recommend it as an option if you eat such cereal in your household.