Salted Caramel Rice Krispie Treats Recipe

Among the many foods that bring up childhood nostaliga, from breakfast cereals scarfed down with Saturday morning cartoons to pizza slices served up at birthday parties to orange slices handed out after soccer games, one sweet treat that must be on the list is the Rice Krispie treat. A perfect blend of crunchy and chewy and oh so tasty, these delightful squares of gooey goodness may call to mind picnics, parties, and holidays past, but they very much deserve to be a part of your present, too.

And now that classic American sweet treat is easy to make yet as tasty as you recall from youth thanks to recipe developer Jessica Morone of Jess Loves Baking. "These are as simple to make as the original Rice Krispies Treats, but much more flavorful," she says. So, follow these few steps closely and soon you'll have a plate stacked high with Rice Krispie treats your kids will love now as much as you did back then. That is, assuming you can bring yourself to share.

It's little surprise Rice Krispie treats are so good when you closely consider the ingredients! To make a batch, you'll need salted butter, sweetened condensed milk, soft caramels, vanilla extract, salt, mini marshmallows, lots of Rice Krispies cereal, and caramel sauce, for topping and flaky sea salt, both of which are optional for topping but are highly recommended.

"The special ingredient in these is the sweetened condensed milk, which helps to make these extra gooey and also gives them a longer shelf life than if you just used marshmallows," Morone says.

First things first, prep a 9x13-inch baking dish with either parchment paper or aluminum foil and then spray the inside of that lined dish with cooking spray. Now set it aside, but close at hand.

Next, add the butter to a large pot and begin to melt it over a low heat. Once the butter has fully melted, add the sweetened condensed milk to the pot and stir, keeping at it until the milk and melted butter have fully incorporated. Next, add the caramels to the pot and stir slowly and steadily as these melt and mix in, which will take up to 5 minutes.

Once the caramels have combined in, add the vanilla extract and salt to the pot and mix everything well, and then finally toss in the mini marshmallows and keep on stirring until these too have melted and been incorporated. "The only thing you really want to watch out for is to make sure the burner on your stove isn't too high when you are doing all the melting steps in the beginning," Morone says. "If the heat is too high you could burn the caramel and marshmallow mixture and have to start all over. If you make sure that the burner is on low heat you shouldn't have to worry about this though."

Once all of the meltable ingredients are well-combined, remove the pot from heat. Immediately add the dry Rice Krispies to the melted ingredients and stir them well until all of the cereal has been fully coated with and incorporated into the melted the caramel sauce.

Now quickly (but carefully — it's sticky!) and evenly pour the completed Rice Krispies treat mixture into the prepared baking dish from earlier, and use a spatula to scrape the last bits from the pan, then gently use that same spatula to press the mixture out evenly into the pan.

If you will be using toppings (like sea salt or caramel sauce or whatever sounds great to you), now is the time to add it while the Rice Krispies are still warm and extra sticky. Either way, once topped or not, let them set for at least 30 minutes to cool and set fully. Then slice the large, rectangular brick into individual treats and enjoy. Optionally drizzle on extra caramel and flaky sea salt as garnish.

If you have extras, you're in luck — these treats store easily and for quite some time. Morone says: "You will want to store these in an airtight container at room temperature, and they will keep for up to a week."