Best Rice Krispie Treats
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A childhood favorite you never outgrow—this Rice Krispie Treat recipe gets a few irresistible upgrades for even more gooey, buttery goodness!
I’m always hesitant to say a recipe is the “best ever,” especially for a dessert like Rice Krispie Treats that everyone knows and loves. But once you’ve tinkered around with a recipe for weeks—asking your kids, their friends, and anyone who passes through your house to sample different versions—you can say it’s the best with some confidence. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the original back-of-the-box Rice Krispie treat recipe, but it can be made so much better with almost no effort. Here’s how:
- Use more butter (lots more) and brown it to deepen the flavor.
- Increase the marshmallows and stir in some at the end for extra gooeyness.
- Add vanilla extract for flavor.
- Add salt because a little salt makes anything sweet taste so much better.
If you love Rice Krispie Treats, be sure to check out my Chewy, Gooey, Golden Rice Krispie Treats (made with a secret ingredient) or my Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats for a sweet-and-salty twist.
“These really are the BEST rice krispie treats! Moist, delicious, and full of gooey marshmallow goodness!”
What You’ll Need To Make The Best Rice Krispie Treat Recipe
- Butter: Provides the rich, buttery flavor and helps bind the treats together. Browning it deepens the flavor, creating a nutty, caramel-like richness.
- Mini Marshmallows: The main sweetener and binder, melted marshmallows create the gooey, sticky texture that gives Rice Krispie treats their characteristic chewiness.
- Vanilla Extract: Adds a touch of warm, aromatic flavor.
- Salt: Balances the sweetness and enhances the flavor of the other ingredients.
- Rice Krispies: These crisped rice cereal pieces absorb the melted marshmallow mixture and provide a crispiness.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-by-Step Instructions
Start by melting the butter in a large pot over medium-high heat. And don’t toss those butter wrappers—you’ll use them later to press the mixture into the pan without it sticking to your spatula!
Once the butter melts, it’ll start to bubble, foam, and turn golden around the edges. Keep a close eye on it—before long, it’ll turn a deep golden brown and smell nutty. But be careful! It can go from perfectly browned to burnt in seconds.
You’ll notice little bits of golden brown sediment forming—that’s totally fine! But if they start to get too dark, just strain them out, then pour the brown butter back into the pot.
Add all but 2 cups of the marshmallows, the vanilla, and salt to the brown butter.
Set the pot over medium heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the marshmallows are completely melted and smooth.
Take the pot off the heat and add the Rice Krispies cereal. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir until everything is evenly coated.
Now toss in those reserved marshmallows and stir just until they soften and start to melt. Don’t overmix—you want those delicious pockets of goo!
Transfer the mixture to a foil-lined baking dish. Using the butter wrappers you saved, press it gently into an even layer.
Let the treats cool for at least an hour, then use the foil overhang to lift them onto a cutting board. Use a serrated knife to cut them into squares. You can store the treats in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or freeze them for longer storage.
Video Tutorial
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Best Rice Krispie Treats
A few tweaks to the back-of-the-box recipe make these the best Rice Krispie Treats ever.
Ingredients
- 12 tablespoons (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan
- Two 10-oz bags mini marshmallows, divided
- ¾ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8½ cups Rice Krispies or crispy rice cereal (see note)
Instructions
- Line a 9 x 13-in pan with heavy duty aluminum foil and lightly grease with softened butter. Set aside 2 cups of the marshmallows.
- In a large pot or Dutch oven, preferably with a light bottom so you can monitor the color, melt the butter over medium heat (save the butter wrappers; you'll use them later for pressing the mixture into the pan). Swirl the pan occasionally to be sure the butter is cooking evenly.
- As the butter melts, it will begin to bubble and foam, and the color will progress from bright yellow to golden to, finally, a toasty-brown. Once you smell that nutty brown butter aroma, take the pan off the heat. (You'll see little bits of golden brown sediment forming; that's okay. However, if the sediment looks almost black, go ahead and pass the butter through a fine sieve to strain it out, then return the brown butter to the pan.)
- Off the heat, add the remaining marshmallows, vanilla, and salt.
- Place the pot back over medium heat and stir the mixture with a wooden spoon until the marshmallows are completely melted. Remove the pan from the heat and add the cereal. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir until evenly combined.
- Add the reserved marshmallows and stir until they are softened and partially melted. Don't overmix; you want pockets of goo. Transfer the mixture to the prepared pan and, using the butter wrapper or damp fingers, press the mixture gently into an even layer in the prepared baking pan. Let cool at room temperature for at least an hour.
- Use the foil overhang to lift the treats onto a cutting board, then use a serrated bread knife to cut into squares. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Note: Kellogg's no longer makes a gluten-free version of Rice Krispies, so if you have a gluten-sensitivity, make sure the cereal you purchase is certified gluten-free.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: To freeze, place in layers separated by wax paper in airtight container. Freeze for up to 6 weeks. Let stand at room temperature for about an hour before serving.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (24 servings)
- Calories: 162
- Fat: 6 g
- Saturated fat: 4 g
- Carbohydrates: 27 g
- Sugar: 15 g
- Fiber: 0 g
- Protein: 1 g
- Sodium: 93 mg
- Cholesterol: 15 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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This is our go to rice krispie treat recipe! We LOVE this recipe!
For camping we make a S’mores version.
S’mores additions/changes:
7 C rice krispies + 3 C golden grahams OR cinnamon toast cruch
Reserve 1 C of mini marshmallows (topping)
1 4.25oz Hershey bar broken into individual squares (topping)
1 C mini chocolate chips or regular chocolate chips (topping)
Make recipe. While still warm sprinkle reserved marshmallows and chocolate chips across the top. You make have to push the marshmallows in a bit. Then push mini Hershey bars into each serving. These are great for camping when you can’t make S’mores due to fire restrictions (even if we can make S’mores I prefer these).
My go to recipe! So soft, chewy and great flavor.
If you are planning on making Rice Crispey treats. Make These. You’ll thank me.
I have one 12oz bag of the regular sized marshmallows can I use this instead of the small ones?
Hi Patty, I’ve never tried this with big marshmallows, but I suspect you could use them if you cut them in quarters before starting the recipe. (Keep in mind that they may take slightly longer to melt.) You mentioned that the bag is 12 ounces — keep in mind that you’ll still need an additional 8 ounces for the recipe.
Hi, this is a question (i didn’t make it yet). How many ounces of Rice Krispies is 8.5 cups? I think that’s the reason why some people stated it didn’t come out for them. Because when I tried my measuring via my large glass measuring cup it came to approx. 10.5 oz. whereas when i used my single-cup plastic measure, it came to less than 10 ounces.
Hi Judy, 8.5 cups weigh 240 g or 8.5 ounces. I would use your single measuring cup, as your large glass measuring cup is for liquid measures and will not give you the correct amount.
Update: (see the link to my pic further down) I made it but it was a nightmare, and worsened my arthritic hands. It was WAY too difficult to mix, like trying to mix dense glue. And eating it, is sorta like eating taffy-candy krisps.
I had used 10.2 ounces krispies because the recipe didn’t state weight. So i decided to add more krispies, hoping that would make it easier to mix, but it didn’t. I managed to transfer most of it to the pan, but not all of it. (That’s because the remainder was so stuck to the pot, that only washing with hot water, and flushing the entire wet gook down the toilet cleaned the rest of the pot).
Then i had to use my very-weak muscle power to the max – to press it all down into the pan. But because it was so dense, it was impossible to make it all be a uniform height. So some parts were much shorter than others.
Then i had to use a hammer on my flower cookie-cutter to cut out each one. Without the hammer, it was too dense to press. So that meant hammering all around the cutter for nearly 30 cut-outs. This caused the cutter to become bent out of shape. Each cut-out, was like hammering into the side of an angled mountain, because the surface was uneven, like hills-and-dales.
Hi Judy, I’m so sorry to hear about the experience you had; it sounds like it was very frustrating! I’m confident the problem came from using too much cereal. For future reference, if you’d like weight measures, the great majority of my recipes (including this one) include conversions to metric/weight measurements. To view them, scroll down to the recipe and immediately below the recipe title on the right side, you’ll see a small toggle. If you switch it from “cup measures” to metric, you’ll see measurements that will work for you. That said, thanks for sharing the pic with me. Despite the challenges you had, the Rice Krispie flowers look pretty!
But it doesn’t make sense – because with either measure that i used (whether the big glass measurer OR the plastic single-cup-measure) the 8.5-cups came to minimum 10-oz.
Thus, even had i used the plastic-cup measurer, it would have been too much rice-krispies, as per my OP above.
So the only answer to this may be to measure 8.5-ounces krispies, no matter which krispies people use. How so many posters here were successful, is what i can’t fathom. Though i did see at least one or two commenters who shared my experience.
These are hands down the best!!
Have you ever made a chocolate version? If so could you post? 🙂
Hi Lindsey, I haven’t made a chocolate version but I’ll add it to my list. Glad you enjoyed! 🙂
Awesome Rice Krispie treat recipe! Wouldn’t change a thing. Like others, I too get requests to make these for events. Many of the requests come from people that typically do not like Rice Krispie treats.
The issue some people have with Rice Krispie treats is they tend to be hard…not these! And the brown butter, salt, and vanilla really elevate the flavor.
The reason these come out so soft and delicious is because of the variations from the original recipe…extra marshmallows, browning the butter, etc. It felt like this had to be said given some of the reviews that seem to entirely miss the point. I understand they may not be everyone’s favorite Rice Krispie treat recipe, but that does not mean the recipe is written incorrectly. 😊
Hi Jen, I would love to make these for a bridal shower sweet table dipped in white chocolate on a stick. Would it work to cut the squares in half so they are thinner? And therefore increase the number of pieces.
Sure, Connie, that’s fine. Hope everyone enjoys!
Absolutely perfect!!
These are divine! Thank you for such an amazing recipe. I will not make them any other way moving forward! ❤️