No Bake Ranch Oyster Crackers

No Bake Ranch Oyster Crackers are made in the microwave in about 10 minutes with 3 ingredients; oyster crackers, butter, and ranch dressing mix! Eat these crunchy, seasoned crackers as snacks, serve as an appetizer, or serve with soup!

Oyster crackers are typically soup crackers, but oyster crackers with Hidden Valley Ranch are a game changer! P.S. They’re still amazing on my homemade tomato soup!

Seriously, you won’t be able to stop eating these crunchy, flavorful crackers. If you’re a ranch dressing lover, you’re going to go crazy for this snack. This no bake snack mix is perfect for game day, holidays, movie nights, and parties!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

• No Bake! This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to turn the oven on to make these seasoned oyster crackers. Making no bake oyster crackers in the microwave for a few minutes gives them that crispy texture!
• Simple ingredients! You only need three ingredients to make this recipe! They’re all pantry staples like ranch dressing mix, crackers, and butter. 
• Customizable! Make them exactly as you like! Make them spicy, add fresh herbs, or my favorite is adding parmesan cheese! I  never make them without the cheese because cheese crackers are the BEST.

Ingredients

• Oyster Crackers: These tiny crackers are perfect because you get lots of seasoning on each cracker! You can use mini saltines if that’s what you have.
• Butter: Use REAL butter! Nothing tastes as good as real butter. You can use vegetable oil or margarine, but please, please, please give real butter a try! It’s the BEST with real butter, salted or unsalted.
• Ranch Dressing Mix: Hidden Valley Ranch is my favorite. You only need the powder, don’t mix it up into dressing!

Variations

Get creative with this recipe and make it exactly the way you want! Add one of the following ingredients with the ranch dressing mix.

• Teaspoon lemon pepper
• Teaspoon garlic powder
• Dill weed (my favorite)
• Cayenne pepper, hot sauce, or crushed red pepper flakes
• Parmesan cheese (add grated cheese halfway through the cooking time)

Instructions

Melt butter in a large mixing bowl. Add the dry ranch seasoning and any other spices, herbs, or seasonings you love. Stir. 

Add oyster crackers to the butter mixture. Toss to coat. Add parmesan cheese and stir.

Microwave for two minutes in 30-second increments stirring after.

Spread cooked crackers on a large rimmed sheet pan. Cool. 

Tips and Tricks

What’s the difference between baked ranch oyster crackers recipe and ranch oyster crackers no bake?

Some no bake recipes suggest tossing the crackers in the butter seasoning mixture and letting them sit. It’s worth the little bit of extra work to cook them. 

Cooking the crackers in the butter and seasoning mixture does three things

1. The cooking process helps the seasonings stick to the crackers. Cooking helps melt the parmesan cheese making it crispy and PERFECT!
2. Cooking makes the crackers extra crunchy…and, who doesn’t love extra crispy snacks? 
3. The crackers will turn a gorgeous golden brown color!

You can bake the crackers in the oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, stirring halfway through. Then cool.

I LOVE the microwave method of making oyster crackers no bake because it’s the best of both worlds. It only takes a couple of minutes and is totally worth the effort. 

FAQs

More Easy Snack Recipes

•  Microwave homemade Caramel Bugles are so much better than the store bought ones! I literally can’t leave them alone!
• Switch up the color of the M&Ms and make White Chocolate Christmas Crack for any special occasion.
• 2 ingredient almond bark puff corn is insanely delicious and incredibly easy to make!
• Microwave S’mores Mug Cake is perfect when you need a chocolate fix right now!

 

This recipe was originally written in 2014 and updated in 2024 with new images and text. The recipe is the same!