Old Bay Goldfish Crackers

Can't get your hands on a bag of the official Old Bay x Goldfish collab snack crackers? Now you can make your own in just a few minutes! My homemade version of Old Bay Goldfish crackers is such a good, easy snack for picnics, barbecues, pool parties, movie nights, school lunches, and more.

When I decided to make a recipe for Old Bay Goldfish, I thought it would be simple. One or two tests and done, bam. But accurately replicating the magic of the original collab was harder than I thought!

The final recipe itself? The one I'm sharing with you here? So easy. But getting there took me several tries.

Goldfish are one of my favorite snacks and ever since we lived in Baltimore, Jimmy has been obsessed with trying Old Bay-flavored everything. I don't eat seafood, so I was initially skeptical, but it has very much grown on me.

My review of Old Bay Goldfish is a whopping 15/10 gold stars, 800 thumbs straight up, a million high fives, all of the biggest gold metals in real gold, etc, etc. This is quite possibly my new all-time favorite Goldfish flavor. The paprika and celery salt in the Old Bay bring out the best in the Goldfish flavor, and the Goldfish crackers bring out the best flavors from the Old Bay.

Their powers combined make a snack that tastes like it was meant to be eaten this way. It's a snackable meet-cute of romcom proportions. A meet-cute you can eat.

So of course, I had to figure out how to make Old Bay Goldfish from scratch.

Use "Original" Goldfish Crackers For Best Results

I started testing this recipe with the classic Cheddar Goldfish crackers, because that's what I think of as "plain" Goldfish crackers. But no matter what combination or ratio of seasonings I used, they just didn't taste right. There was some ~mysterious~ flavor in my version that wasn't there in the official Old Bay Goldfish.

I went through like four test batches trying to figure out what it was before Jimmy came to the rescue by doing the obvious: He double-checked the ingredients list on the Old Bay x Goldfish bag. Duh!

It turns out there was NO CHEDDAR in the official Old Bay Goldfish crackers. What??? How had I missed this??

At this point, the blog post I was drafting in my head went like this: "These aren't a perfect dupe for the official Old Bay Goldfish because those ones don't use Cheddar and non-Cheddar Goldfish don't exist, and I'm not about to make them from scratch...but Cheddar Old Bay Goldfish are still pretty good!"

HOWEVER, that is NOT the blog post I'm writing. Lucky for all of us, I brought some of my test batches over to my in-laws' house because, about 5 seconds into telling my mother-in-law, "It's a shame plain Goldfish don't exist," she interrupted me to say, "But they do."

I'm sorry...WHAT???? ORIGINAL GOLDFISH ARE A THING??!?!?! Cheddar Goldfish aren't the "original" Goldfish cracker? Did you know? I did not know!

Original Goldfish are basically soup crackers. Kind of like oyster crackers, but saltier and in the shape of little fish. We ran to the store, grabbed two bags, and gave my best test version of the recipe so far a try. Boom. They were perfect. No notes. The "Original" Goldfish crackers were what was missing all along.

Depending on where you live Old Bay can sometimes be a little hard to find — if it's not in the spice aisle of your grocery store, check the fish or seafood aisle! Unsalted butter works best in this recipe, since Goldfish are already salted to begin with.

And, yes, this recipes uses that MSG. Monosodium glutamate is a naturally occurring plant-derived fermented flavor enhancer and has two-thirds less sodium than most salts. It's a great way to amp up the flavor without making your food too salty. MSG is sold as "Accent!" seasoning here in America, though I'm partial to the Japanese Ajinomoto brand which often comes in a cute panda bottle.

PS — Check out the work KnowMSG is doing to undo decades of xenophobic fear-mongering around this misunderstood and unfairly maligned ingredient!)

How to Make Old Bay Goldfish

Adding the seasoning to the melted butter helps get an even coating of seasoning on the crackers.

This time in the oven is less about baking the crackers and more about drying them out and getting the Old Bay to stick. Depending on how much butter the crackers absorbed during mixing, and how crowded the sheet pan is, they might need more or less time than the recipe says.

The oven temperature is so low that they're not at risk of burning. They just need to be completely dried.

You can eat the DIY Old Bay Goldfish right out of the oven, but just like when you make my homemade Chex Mix, it's best to let them cool completely first. You really can't get a sense of the flavors until they're cool.

A Brief, FASCINATING History of Old Bay

Did you know Old Bay was created by a Jewish immigrant fleeing the Nazis during WWII? As reported by The Nosher and The Washington Post, Gustav Brunn was a successful Jewish spice merchant in Germany who arrived in Baltimore in the late 1930s, post-Kristallnacht.

He founded the Baltimore Spice Company (which was sold to McCormick in 1990). At first, Brunn sold spices individually, but then created his own unique blend. To make it harder to replicate, he added a few unique ingredients, like cinnamon and nutmeg.

Those spices turned out to be crucial additions to the Old Bay flavor, bringing out the best in the primary ingredients (paprika, celery salt, etc). Brunn gave a few free samples to the local fish merchants and the rest is history!

📖 Recipe