To make Chocolate Haystacks, all you do is combine chow mein noodles with a mixture of melted chocolate and nuts. Its as simple as that, but there are more than a few variations to make yours stand out. My favorite is this one, which calls for a mixing chocolate and butterscotch chips. The recipe will give you about 36, but if you just want to make a small batch of Haystacks for the family, it’s easy to halve or even quarter.
This is an old recipe that you may already know, but how often do you remember to make Chocolate Haystacks? They are incredibly simple to make and are sure to please any crowd. I can’t believe I’ve never posted this recipe before!
This recipe is for the chocolate version, of course. Use the same recipe but substitute 1 cup butterscotch chips, ½ cup peanut butter, ½ cup salted peanuts, and 2 cups chow mein noodles if you’d rather have peanut butter haystacks. You can also substitute shoestring potato chips for the noodles.
Growing up, we always had butterscotch haystacks throughout the fall. They’d first appear at my Grandmother’s when we’d show up at her house as our first stop on our trick-or-treating trek Halloween and then Mama would make them through Thanksgiving before we switched to chocolate desserts and treats for Christmas.
However, I couldn’t wait to bite into one of the haystacks before they had hardened because I felt like something was missing. So when they were finally cooling, I sprinkled a little sea salt on top of them.
Chow mein noodles are crunchy, chocolatey from the chocolate itself, toasted almonds are nutty, and there’s just a hint of salt for good measure. Mercy!.
Going forward, I believe I will cut the recipe in half to make half chocolate and half butterscotch haystacks. In this way, my son has our new chocolate haystack version and my husband and I have the butterscotch haystacks of our youth.
I knew that haystacks would be the ideal no-bake dessert to make with Little Buddy the other afternoon as we were preparing treats to take on a weekend trip. We swiftly made these incredibly tasty chocolate haystacks by substituting chocolate chips for the butterscotch chips when I realized he wasn’t a big fan of butterscotch.
