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No fire, no sticks, no burnt fingers trying to catch a melty marshmallow — just all that classic s’mores flavor packed into a grab-and-go snack bag. This one’s ready in about ten minutes, and it’s about as low-effort as a dessert gets.
Why You’ll Love It
No campfire required — all the s’mores flavor without the flame or the sticky fingers
Ready in 10 minutes — mostly just waiting on the pudding to set
Individually portioned — everyone gets their own bag, no fighting over who got more chocolate
Grab-and-go friendly — pool bag, cooler, or car ride, they travel well
Kid-friendly assembly — easy enough for kids to build themselves
A Few Notes on the Ingredients
The pudding situation is flexible, and honestly I think that’s where you can have the most fun with it. I usually reach for instant chocolate, the boxed kind, because it’s fast and I am impatient by nature — but I’ve made these with the fudge kind too and nobody complained. Some people swear by vanilla, which I personally think is a crime against s’mores, but to each their own.
Teddy Grahams in the little snack-size bags are really what makes this work — the individual portioning is the whole point, otherwise you’re just making a s’mores dip, which is a fine thing but a different thing entirely. If your store doesn’t carry them for whatever reason, Golden Grahams cereal in snack bags does the trick too, or those Annie’s bunny grahams if you’re trying to feel slightly better about the sugar content (you’re not fooling anyone, but sure).
And the marshmallows — mini, always mini, the big ones just don’t distribute right in a little bag. I buy the generic store brand half the time because I genuinely cannot tell the difference, though I’ve always heard the name brand melts better, and I think I’ve probably just absorbed that as fact without ever actually testing it myself.
What You’ll Need
1 box (5.1 oz) instant chocolate pudding — the boxed kind, not the pre-made cups
2 cups milk
10 individual snack-size bags of Teddy Grahams
about 1½ cups mini marshmallows, maybe a little more if your kids are like mine and complain there’s “not enough”
3 regular Hershey bars, chopped up — I just eyeball the chop, doesn’t need to be pretty
How I Actually Make These
Okay so first you make the pudding — dump the mix and the milk into a bowl and stir it, and I mean really stir it, for about three minutes. It feels like it’s taking forever and like nothing is happening and then all of a sudden it thickens up on you. Let it sit for another two minutes after that so it fully sets. I’ve rushed this step before and ended up with soupy pudding that just sort of soaks into the crackers instead of sitting on top of them, and it’s still edible but it’s not really right, if that makes sense.
While that’s setting, grab your little bags of Teddy Grahams and snip the tops off — I use kitchen scissors, works better than trying to tear them. Fold the edges down a bit, like you’re rolling down the top of a lunch bag, because otherwise the whole thing collapses when you go to eat it and you end up with graham cracker crumbs everywhere, which, trust me, is a mess you don’t want on a pool deck or in the back seat of a car.
Then just spoon the pudding right into each bag — I don’t measure this, I just go until it looks like enough, maybe a couple tablespoons per bag. Top it with a small handful of the mini marshmallows and some of your chopped chocolate, and that’s it, you’re done. Hand out spoons and let everyone dig in straight from the bag.
If You Want to Switch It Up
Adding crushed graham crackers on top for a little extra crunch is a nice touch if you want it. Peanut butter chips instead of the Hershey bar is another one I’ve seen tried — I’ll be honest, I wasn’t a fan, felt like it fought with the chocolate pudding instead of working with it, but some people like it that way.
You could swap in white chocolate pudding if you want something a little different, or do half the batch one way and half the other if you’ve got a house full of picky eaters like mine.
Storing Them (Or Really, Not)
These are best made right before you’re going to eat them — the whole appeal is that cookie crunch, and it does not last. If you’ve got leftovers, which honestly rarely happens around here, you can stick them in the fridge for a day or two, but fair warning, the Teddy Grahams get soft, almost mushy, the longer they sit. Some people don’t seem to mind eating them that way, but I notice.
Anyway — that’s more or less it. It’s not a complicated recipe, never has been, and maybe that’s why it’s the one that stuck around out of the dozen things I’ve tried to bring to summer get-togethers. Somebody always asks for the “recipe” and I sort of laugh because there isn’t much of one to give them. Just grab the bags, skip the fire, and let the kids do the assembling — they’re usually better at it than I am anyway.