Rice Krispie Nests are the easiest festive Easter treats! Top these soft and delicious Rice Krispies with a few candy eggs to make them look nests.
Rice Krispie Nests
My oven is normally full to the brim on holidays between the main dish and sides. If your oven is also full with your Easter Ham, this no-bake Easter dessert is the perfect thing to make!
These Rice Krispie Nests are simple and fun, so they’re definitely a great dessert to make with kids!
I love Rice Krispie Treats so much. Brown Butter Rice Krispie Treats are my all-time favorite, but these Peeps Rice Krispie Treats, Halloween Rice Krispie Treats and Christmas Rice Krispie Treats are also pretty great and so festive!
How To Make It
Start by melting the butter, then mixing in the marshmallows. I like to stop stirring the marshmallows when about half of them look completely melted – that’s my trick for getting perfectly soft Rice Krispie Treats every single time.
After that, you’ll mix in the vanilla, salt, and crispy rice cereal. Portion the mixture out into a greased muffin pan or two, then use a greased piece of parchment paper to press each nest into place and make an indent in the center.
Let the nests rest for 30 minutes to an hour before popping them out and filling them with your favorite Easter candy.
Why Do Rice Krispie Treats Fall Apart?
This comes down to the ratio of crispy rice cereal to marshmallows. Too many marshmallows and your treats will be too soft and fall apart, too much cereal and your treats will be dry and brittle.
Festive Variations
There are so many ways you can adapt this recipe to suit your tastes. The two main ways are to change the nest or to change the candy topping.
Ideas for the nest:
- Use brown butter. This is my FAVORITE adaptation. It’s so simple, but taking the extra few minutes to brown the butter makes such a delicious difference in the flavor.
- Use chocolate crispy rice cereal to make chocolate nests. You could even stir chocolate chips in right at the end before transferring it to the muffin tin (just be sure to do this quickly so the chocolate chips don’t melt).
- If you love all things peanut butter, try stirring in a bit of peanut butter after you melt the marshmallows.
For the candy eggs, I used Hershey’s Eggies filled with Reese’s peanut butter because the egg colors were the brightest, but the pastel chocolate candy eggs would also be great! Some other ideas for the candy egg topping are:
- Use jelly beans or M&Ms.
- Try adding buttercream tinted with green food dye underneath the eggs.
- You can make edible grass by tossing shredded coconut with green food dye, and place that underneath the candy eggs.
- Only use the blue candy eggs so they look more like robin eggs.
- Use the colorful mini marshmallows.
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I’d love to hear what you thought of this recipe in the comments or on Instagram! @KeyToMyLime #KeyToMyLime
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Dessert Recipes
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Rice Krispies Nests Recipe
Rice Krispie Nests are the easiest festive Easter treats! Top these soft and delicious Rice Krispies with a few candy eggs to make them look nests.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 (10 ounce) bag marshmallows
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- Heaping 1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 6 cups Rice Krispies or crispy rice cereal
- Candy eggs of choice (for topping)
Instructions
- Grease 1 - 2 muffin tins (depending on how full you plan to make each Rice Krispie Nest) and set to the side.
- In a large nonstick skillet or pot, melt the butter over medium heat. Once the butter has melted add in the marshmallows and use a silicone spatula to stir until it’s combined. When you’re mixing the marshmallows into the butter, be sure to stop when only about half of the marshmallows look melted - that’s how you end up with soft and fluffy Rice Krispie Treats. The rest will melt as you mix the crispy rice cereal in. If you keep mixing until the marshmallows look totally melted, you’ll lose a lot of the air in the marshmallows, which leaves you with hard and dense Rice Krispies.
- Add in the vanilla and salt and stir to combine. Pour in the crispy rice cereal and mix to evenly coat the cereal with the marshmallow coating.
- Divide the cereal and marshmallow mixture evenly amongst the muffin pans. Use a greased piece of parchment paper to press the center of each “nest” down to create the indented shape.
- Let the Rice Krispie Nests rest for 30 minutes, then remove them from the pan and fill each with egg shaped Easter candies.
Notes
This recipe can easily be adapted to be gluten free, but you'll need to use all certified gluten free ingredients (be especially sure to double check that the cereal and candy you're using are certified gluten free).
Nutrition Information:
Serving Size:
1/16Amount Per Serving: Calories: 145Total Fat: 5.9gCarbohydrates: 23.4gNet Carbohydrates: 23.3gFiber: 0.1gSugar: 11.2gProtein: 1.1g
Nutrition information isn’t always accurate. Nutrition information for this recipe does not include candy eggs because there are so many different ones that could be used.
Try making Rice Krispie Nests! They’re the perfect easy and fun Easter treat.
1 thought on “Rice Krispie Nests Recipe”
Make a kids classic with these chocolate Rice Krispie cakes and decorate with sweets, nuts or dried fruit for the ultimate hometime treat