If there’s one thing I really encourage you to make for your kiddos, and also for yourself + significant other + parents + friends + coworkers + anyone you know, this sweet treat would be it! A fun and healthy twist on the traditional rice crispy treat, these strawberry rice crispy treats are made with simple ingredients and only take about 15 minutes to make.
I haven’t ever made rice crispy treats. I know. What the hell? I just always eat them 🙃 I had to do some research on how to melt the marshmallows, which I assumed were mixed with melted butter at some point in the process *drool*. It seemed to me the easiest way to create the silk, smooth, sticky, finger-licking marshmallow filling was to combine butter and marshmallows in a saucepan over low heat. Magical and dreamy! This method is super easy. You honestly melt, dump, stir and dump again. By “dump” I mean pour the food in something. Maybe a more logical word for a food blog would be pour. Ok, so melt, pour, stir, and pour again. See, easy.
I love adding berry flavors to treats in the summer. I did figure that the moisture from fresh or frozen strawberries would make the treats super soggy. Who wants that? Yeah, no one. And considering my stance on artificial flavorings – as briefly discussed on this post on one of many reasons to avoid artificial flavorings, I was forced to think outside the box. I remembered that I use freeze-dried fruits in my kids’ yogurt that I prep ahead of time to avoid extra liquid you get from fresh and frozen fruits. Because the more liquidy a food is = the more mess for me to clean up. Which gave me the idea to blend freeze-dried strawberries in a food processor until a powder was formed. I then added this powder to the mix and it worked beautifully! It adds such a delicious strawberry taste that is not artificial. Halleluiah.
Strawberry Rice Crispy Treats
Makes 16 rice crispy squares
Ingredients
- 6 oz. grass-fed butter
- 1 (10 oz.) bag marshmallows, cut into ½ inch pieces (see notes)
- 5 cups brown rice crisps cereal (see notes)
- 1/3 cup freeze-dried strawberry powder (see notes)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Method
- Line an 8×8 inch pan with parchment paper.
- Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.
- Once butter is melted, add in ¾ of marshmallow pieces and turn heat to low. Stir until marshmallows are melted.
- Add cereal, strawberry powder, vanilla, and the remainder of the marshmallows into the saucepan. Stir until cereal is completely coated with other ingredients.
Notes:
- Use a bag of fresh marshmallows. Using an old bag or stale marshmallows will make it difficult to melt and stir together with the cereal. You can also use mini marshmallow to eliminate having to cut regular sized marshmallows into smaller pieces.
- I used this gluten-free sprouted brown rice crisps cereal. It is a bit crunchier than the traditional rice crispy cereal since it’s made with whole grain brown rice.
- To get the strawberry powder, simply blend freeze-dried strawberries in a food processor until a powder forms. I actually do this often to have it readily available for oatmeal, yogurt, and sweet treats like this.
