Easy, Tasty Toppings for Crackers
Crackers with the right toppings make great food for the trail, since they’re small, light and packable.
Introduction
Crackers are handy little snacks that keep for months and are ready to stave off your hunger or stand in for that bread you forgot to pick up at the store. They make great food for the trail, since they’re small, light and long lasting. And with crackers on your shelf, you can always serve something tasty to friends who show up out of the blue.
Good organic cracker options make it easy to skip highly processed crackers typically made with palm oil, high-fructose corn syrup and GMOs.
So, What Can You Eat with Crackers?
Let’s start with the cracker first. Is it flavorful or neutral? That’ll help guide your topping choice. You don’t want to put strong blue cheese on a garlicky cracker, for instance, or the flavors will compete. A good rule of thumb: The milder the cracker, the more intense the topping can be. The reverse holds true, too: intensely flavored crackers are probably better off with mild-tasting toppings.
Cheese & Crackers
- Sourdough crackers / Olive oil crackers & Gruyère or cheddar
The slight tang of these crackers makes them wonderful with cheeses that have round, ripe flavors. Because the pairing is so simple, the better the cheese, the more satisfying your snack will be. - Dried fruit and nut crisps & sliced pear, blue cheese and honey
Flavors and textures mix in every bite, with salty blue cheese popping against sweet fruit and honey, and soft toppings meeting the crunch of the cracker. - Garlicky crackers & fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil
Make a mini pizza.
Peanut Butter & Crackers
- Wheat crackers & peanut butter, banana, bacon and honey
There’s a reason Elvis loved the peanut-butter-banana-bacon sandwich, allegedly invented by the Colorado Gold Mine Company restaurant in Denver. It’s really good if you trade the bread for crackers, too. - Rice crackers or rice cakes & peanut butter, sambal, shredded chicken and cilantro
Swirl the peanut butter with sambal, a fiery Indonesian condiment, for a spicy Southeast Asian spin on peanut butter. Add shredded roast chicken and cilantro—and maybe a squeeze of lime if you have it. If you don’t have sambal, chile crisp or Sriracha works too. - Wheat crackers & roasted almond butter & raspberry jam
We love making a stack of crunchy little sandwiches and demolishing them with a cup of tea or coffee. Kids love them, too.
Smoked Salmon & Crackers
- Rosemary garlic crackers & smoked salmon, pickled red onions and parsley
Pickled onions add zing to each rich bite. Here’s a 5-minute recipe to pickle your own onions: Slice half an onion into thin rings and put in a jar with ½ cup boiling water. Stir in 3 tbsp. white vinegar, 1½ tsp. salt and 1½ tsp. sugar. Let sit at least 30 minutes, then chill; they’ll keep a couple of weeks in the fridge. - Herb crackers & smoked salmon, cream cheese, fresh red onion and capers
We’ve built these to eat with scrambled eggs at brunch, and we’ve also had them in camp, putting out the components and letting people top their own crackers.
Crackers with Dips
If you’re in the mood for scooping rather than topping, try a few of these:
- Garlic or sourdough crackers with salmon dip
- Herb crackers with chicken salad
- Chile-spiked crackers with raita (Indian yogurt-cumin sauce)
- Cheeze crackers with caramelized onion dip
- Multiseed crackers with red-pepper hummus
- Sesame-seed crackers with babaganoush
- Rosemary crackers with white-bean dip
Still Craving Crackers?
There’s a multitude of cool stuff you can do with crackers besides top them. We break up crackers over salads, crumble them into soups and grind them to stand in for breadcrumbs in recipes.
We produce organic crackers made with Regenerative Organic Certified® wheat, in four different delicious flavors: Sourdough Sea Salt, Rosemary Garlic, Multiseed, and Toasted Cheeze. All are good on their own or with toppings.
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