Use a really short, 0.2-second reverb to add depth and thickness without cluttering it up with reverb. Blend the reverb underneath, cut the lows and highs from the reverb and you’ll end up with a bigger sounding snare.
A fast attack on a transparent compressor, like a VCA emulation, will dull the snap a bit. VCA’s are pretty clean sounding so they’ll just eat the transient without adding a bunch of character to the sound.
Use parallel compression on not just the drum bus but the snare track as well. A really fast attack attack to kill the transient and adds extra thickness.
Saturation can help dull the high-mid frequencies. A “warm” tape preset can thicken up the body of the snare while taming the smack.
A good ol’ EQ on the high mids to get rid of the attack is always a simple solution.
A multi-band compressor targeting the frequency area of the snap ONLY will tame the part that’s annoying you while leaving everything else intact.
