This recipe for festive M&M Bark couldn’t be simpler – four ingredients, 15 minutes to prep, 20 minutes to set, and you’ve got a tasty treat!

Christmas is not too far away and have I got the most simple and easy recipe for you and your kiddos to make together. It’s so simple that it is only four ingredients. Uh-huh, four ingredients! I know…that’s a recipe I can get behind.

My kids love M&Ms – I mean, doesn’t everyone’s kids love M&M’s? I’m so grateful that the company now sells bags of only red and green M&Ms because back in the day, if I wanted to do something featuring the holiday M&Ms, I had to buy so many bags of regular candies and pick out the red and green ones, which who has the time for? Probably why I only did it one time for my holiday chocolate chip cookies (which are no longer on the blog). And of course I know M&Ms are not good for you…we eat almost zero candy in our house – 99% of the sweets consumed here are baked goods made from scratch. But we make a small, short-term exception for red and green M&Ms around the holidays. If you really don’t want to make the exception for M&Ms, there are some healthier alternatives out there these days, too. But honestly…this is melted white chocolate with chocolate candies in it. It’s not supposed to be healthy.

I think this recipe takes a grand prep total of maybe 15 minutes. The part that takes the longest is melting the white chocolate – and don’t bother buying the baking chocolate. White chocolate chips work perfectly here. Patience is your friend as you stand by your microwave and melt the chocolate carefully for 30 second intervals with the power at 50% each time.

A silicone mat will really help you here, too. I’m sure you could use parchment. I didn’t try it on parchment, but I’m sure it would work. I would maybe set something heavy on the side of the sheet of parchment to way it down a bit so it doesn’t crinkle up and move every time you try and spread the white chocolate evenly.

I used the classic thin style of pretzels. The sticks would work too, but the curves of the original pretzel design really add to the whimsy of this recipe. And don’t skip the sea salt. I find that it really adds a lot to the bark.

If you wanted to make these a bit more festive, you could add 1/4 tsp of peppermint extract to the melted chocolate. I didn’t do that, but it would be a fun way to make them even more interesting as a treat.

This recipe doesn’t make a ton and you want to be sure that the chocolate is spread on the baking sheet at 1/4 inch thick – if it is any thinner, the M&Ms and pretzels really have a hard time staying in place. There were a few places where I spread it a little too thin and the m&ms and pretzels just couldn’t hang onto the chocolate.

My kids loved this recipe. We kept our bark in the fridge, but you can store it at room temp, too. I’ve just trained my kids to like chocolate cold. (I’m known for throwing Twix, Snickers, Kit Kats, 3 Musketeers, and Hershey bars in the freezer – I think they just taste better like that!)

So if you have these ingredients on hand and you’re looking for one more special, easy little treat to serve up or bring over to someone’s house, or even make as a diy gift – this is a great little recipe to turn too.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!