These super adorable reindeer Rice Krispie treats are perfect for Holiday themed parties or get togethers. They also make the perfect food Craft if your kids want to get involved in the kitchen.

closeup of reindeer rice krispie treat with two others in background on cutting board

What are reindeer rice krispie treats?

Reindeer Rice Krispie treats are simply Rice Krispie treats that are cut into triangles instead of the typical square and decorated to look like reindeers. They are easy to make with only three main ingredients and a couple of extra things needed for decoration. You should be able to get these together in around 20 minutes or so.

These cereal treats are super adorable desserts to serve at holiday parties, Christmas to get togethers, or to make with your kids as a food craft.

If you like decorating cereal treats you may also try out these Santa Rice Krispie treats, Minnie Mouse Rice Krispie treats or mermaid rice krispie treats.

Variations

We chose to make these reindeer treats with Cocoa rice krispies to give them their brown look. However, there's a couple of additional ways you could spice these treats up if you want. Here's some ideas:

Use cocoa pebbles: Cocoa pebbles are very similar and look and taste to cook over rice krispies and would make a good substitute to still result in a brown colored reindeer treat.
Use Brown food coloring: instead of using cocoa krispies, use regular Rice Krispies but add Brown food coloring to get the brown colored reindeer treats.
Make chocolate Rice Krispies: if you don't have any food coloring and you only have regular rice krispies, you could melt some chocolate chips and add that to your Rice Krispies to get the brown color.
Make a different red nose: we used red decorating gel to add the Red nose to a reindeers. However, you could try a red hot or even a mini red m&m.

How to Make these treats

Even though these decorated treats look fancy, they're not difficult at all to make. And you don't have to be an artist to get them to look super cute.

Supplies

spatula
large stock pot or Microwave Safe Bowl
Measuring Cup
9 x 13 baking pan

Ingredients

6 Cups cocoa Krispies Cereal
16 oz of Jet Puff Marshmallows
4 Tbs Salted Butter
(optional) non-stick canola oil spray
Pretzels
Candy Eyeballs
Decorative Icing

adding red nose to reindeer rice krispie treats

Instructions

Step One

Start out by making sure you have all of your ingredients and supplies ready to get started. Also, make sure that you have pre-greased your spatula, bowl and pan.

Step Two

You need to first melt together your marshmallows and butter. You can choose to do this either on the stove or in the microwave.

In the microwave:

The microwave method is much faster than on the stove.
You can toss both your four tablespoons of butter and your 16 oz of marshmallows together in your microwave safe bowl.
Stick your bowl into your microwave and heat for 30 to 60 seconds.
Remove your bowl and stir everything well.
Stick your bowl back in the microwave and heat 30 seconds at a time stirring in between until your marshmallows are melted.

On the stove:

Though this method takes significantly longer than microwaving your treats, it does give you more control over how much heat is applied to your marshmallows and can result in a better textured treat.
First place 4 tablespoons of butter and a pot and heat it on low.
Stir your butter occasionally during heating until it is almost fully melted.
Place your 16 oz of marshmallows into your pot with your melted butter.
Leave your heat on low.
Stir your marshmallows frequently to ensure that they don't puff up too big and that the heat is evenly distributed during melting.
Remove your pan from the heat as soon as your marshmallows are melted.

Step Three

Measure out 6 cups of cocoa rice krispies cereal. Slowly add the cereal to your butter and marshmallow mixture.

If you add around ⅓ of the cereal at a time it becomes easier to fold in and make sure that you get a consistently mixed batter

Step Four

Use your pan that is pre-greased in your spatula that is pre-greased and place your mixture into your pan.

Gently press the mixture into your pan until you have an even consistency and thickness.

Step Five

Put your pan of treats aside to cool. They should be ready to go in around 30 minutes.

Once they have cooled, you need to cut your treats. We made ours in a triangles. You can either use a pre-greased knife to cut your pan into triangles or you can take a cookie cutter that is a triangle shape and use that to cut your treats.

Step Six

Once you have a bunch of brown triangle treats we need to decorate them.

Grab two decorative candy eyeballs per treat and press them and equal distances towards the top of the tree to be the reindeer eyes.

adding pretzel antlers to reindeer treats

Step Seven

Grab some red decorating gel and put a small ball of gel right at the tip of the triangle on each Street to represent Rudolph's red nose.

Step eight

This might be the hardest part of the treats. Grab your mini pretzel twists and pop the round parts of the pretzel off so that you just have a y shape of pretzel left.

Make two of these for each treat and gently stick the bottom part of the y into the flat part of your triangle to be your reindeer's antlers.

Pro Tips and Storage for treats

Maximum storage time: you can store these treats for around a week. Make sure that you store them in an airtight container at room temperature. Placing them in the fridge can extend their freshness but does make them harder and less chewy. If you want to make these ahead or you won't finish them within this time frame, you can wrap them individually and put them in the freezer.
Don't overheat marshmallows: you want to be sure when you're melting your marshmallows to not overheat them or they become stiff and brittle resulting in hard treats. Use only enough heat to melt the marshmallows and no more. Stirring your marshmallows frequently during heating can help to disperse the heat and melt them faster using less heat.
Don't smash your treats: when you're pressing the treats into your pan do so gently. If you press them too hard you will end up with compact hard treats instead of chewy textured treats.