3 Cheap Gluten-Free Snacks That Are Perfect For a Road Trip

1. Peanut butter chocolate chip balls

For these balls, you are going to want some cereal. I have some Cheerios, then some butter, some old-fashioned oats, honey, chunky or smooth peanut butter, and some chocolate chips.

We're going to start heating our pan. First up, we're going to be adding three tablespoons of honey.

You can spray your spoon with some nonstick spray; when you measure out sticky ingredients like honey or Karo syrup, it won't stick to the spoon. Next up, I'm adding two tablespoons of peanut butter. 

Then add a tablespoon of butter. 

The recipe called for dried cranberries, but I don't have dried cranberries on hand, so we are instead going without that and just adding the chocolate chips it calls for. Now we're just going to turn off our stove. We will add half a cup of oats and half a cup of cereal. 

Next, we're going to let this cool. I'm going to set it aside on a separate table. I've covered a sheet pan with a little bit of aluminum foil. You could also use parchment paper.

We're going to add in our two tablespoons of chocolate chips.

I'm eyeballing this one because chocolate chips are one of those ingredients you don't measure very often. That's about two tablespoons. Now we'll mix it up.

The recipe says to wait two minutes for it to cool, but I think it needs more time than that because it has been five minutes, and the chocolate chips are melting. So even ten minutes of waiting time before adding the chocolate chips would probably be better.

If you're having trouble with the things falling apart, add just a teaspoon more of honey into the mixture and stir it in, it should help it to loosen up a little bit so that you can scoop them more easily and that they'll stick together more easily.

We're going to let these cool and set, and then we are going to try one out and see how it is.

I have already tried one, and it crisped up. These are the perfect road trip snack because they're salty and sweet. It made twelve, so I felt like it was a decent amount for it to make.

I did half a recipe, so with a full recipe, you could probably feed four very easily on the road for snacking purposes. 

2. Gluten-free rice crackers

You're going to need some oil. If you have olive oil, that would add some good flavor, but vegetable oil is fine. You'll also need cooked rice, a pinch of salt, and a little water.

I am doing a quarter of this recipe because I don't want too many snacks in the house, so I have a small amount of rice.

First, you're going to preheat your oven to 180 degrees. Next, add your rice and a tablespoon or two of water to your food processor. I'm adding water, which requires a very small amount of oil. So we're just putting in a little dash, about half a teaspoon.

I already went ahead and salted my rice when I was cooking it, so I'm not going to add any more until after they're cooked to ensure they don't get too salty.

We finished blending it, and it still has small pieces, but I will cook it and see how it does. I prepared my sheet pan with parchment paper and dumped the dough.

It says to take small bits of it, place it on the side, and line it all out in small rolled balls. Then we will press this down with another sheet of parchment paper, which should help it not stick.

All right, we have everything all rolled out; now we're going to go ahead and use our other sheet pan to press down and see how well this does. 

They are pressing out rather large.

I'm just going to shake it as I pull it up, trying to keep things from sticking. It looks like it's doing a very decent job at not sticking. I think it helps that it has that oil in there. They all squished down so nicely.

Now we will stick it in our oven, and it says to do it until they're getting a little brown along the edges. 

After baking, they are lightly browned and very crunchy, so be aware they are a hard chip, like a caramel corn texture.

These were tasty and flavorful. 

3. Vegetable chips

I've got sweet potatoes, squash, zucchini, and a carrot. Then you've got some salt and some oil. That's all you'll need, along with an oven and a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.

We're going to use our slicer on this little mandolin tool, and we're going to start slicing these vegetables up. We went ahead and rinsed everything off, washed everything, and cut off the ends. Now all we have to do is start shaving away at it. 

These are looking good. The mandolin sliced these into the perfect size. 

Now I'm just putting about a teaspoon and a half of salt on here and about a tablespoon of oil. We're going to toss to coat, and then we're going to lay a thin layer of the vegetables onto our sheet pan. 

According to the recipe that I am roughly following, these should be kept in an airtight container for up to two weeks. So I think they'll probably be like the rice crackers in that they'll be best the first few days, like the first two days, but they'll probably still be decent several days after. 

We're going to go and pop these in the oven. The oven needs to be preheated to 400 degrees. It's currently at 180 because those rice crackers are still in there. So we'll let it preheat to 400 after taking the rice crackers out. 

Cheap gluten-free snacks

This is our finished product; as you can see, they shrunk substantially.

The sweet potato ones turned out the crispest, and I like them the best, so those are the way to go.

What are your favorite cheap gluten-free snacks? Do you have specific favorites for road trips? Share your recipes in the comments below.