The ORIGINAL Chex Party Mix recipe is getting hard to find. The recipe they currently print on the cereal boxes is, of course, crappy. First of all, they've greatly reduced the ratio of butter to the other ingredients, probably because of the Food Nazis. Even more dumb is, the cereal box ONLY has microwave instructions, no oven instructions. You can't do these in the microwave, that's incredibly stupid; a conventional oven is an absolute requirement in order to dry out the ingredients and toast them. (As a philosophical aside, the obsession with thinking the microwave is "quick" and "convenient" is dumb; if you compare the instructions for oven vs microwave, the microwave instructions aren't the least bit more convenient, it takes just as much measuring, mixing and stirring as the oven. Dumb, dumb dumb.)
I have two recipes here. The first one is the modern recipe with the correct oven instructions (which are still on the Chex website). The second recipe is evidently the actual ORIGINAL recipe, it was found in a magazine from the early 1960s. Supporting evidence for this is that it doesn't include the "bagel chips", which weren't around back then.
It's interesting to compare the two recipes. The original recipe has just 7 cups of cereal, whereas the modern recipe has a whopping 9 cups of cereal PLUS an added cup of bagel chips. Despite this, the original recipe has 8 tablespoons of butter and the modern one only 6 tablespoons. Like I said... those darn Food Nazis... Also interesting, the original recipe does not include the onion or garlic powder. The original recipe also has less Worcestershire sauce and seasoned salt, but that could be attributed to the fact that it has less cereal and no bagel chips; in fact the original recipe only makes 9 cups and the modern one makes 12 cups. Overall, the original recipe would clearly be better, but I kind of like the idea of the garlic and onion powder, so perhaps a hybrid would be in order.
Modern Recipe
Ingredients
3 cups Corn Chex® cereal
3 cups Rice Chex® cereal
3 cups Wheat Chex® cereal
1 cup mixed nuts
1 cup bite-size pretzels
1 cup garlic-flavor bite-size bagel chips or regular-size bagel chips, broken into 1-inch pieces
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons seasoned salt
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Directions
Heat oven to 250°F. In large bowl, mix cereals, nuts, pretzels and bagel chips; set aside. In ungreased large roasting pan, melt butter in oven. Stir in seasonings. Gradually stir in cereal mixture until evenly coated. Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to cool, about 15 minutes. Store in airtight container.
Original Recipe
Ingredients
1 stick (1/2 C) butter or margarine
1 1/4 teaspoons seasoned salt
4 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 1/3 cups Corn Chex
2 1/3 cups Rice Chex
2 1/3 cups Wheat Chex
1 cup small pretzels
1 cup salted mixed nuts
Directions
Heat oven to 250. Melt butter in 15x10x2 pan; remove pan from oven. Stir in seasoned salt and Worcestershire sauce. Gradually add cereal, pretzels, and nuts, stirring to coat evenly. Bake 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes. Spread on paper towels to soak up excess oil.
Makes 9 cups.