The holiday season is now upon us, can you believe it!? Where did the year go? Now is the time when all those wonderful family favorite recipes are made- cookies, pies, and other goodies abound testing the will-power in all of us. Here is a treat you can make using the same pumpkin you bought to make pumpkin pie – Roasted Pumpkin Seeds!
Roasted pumpkin seeds are not only a great way to use more of your pumpkin, but they are a healthy (gasp!) treat you can enjoy without the guilt. Pumpkin seeds are full of minerals and some antioxidants. So lets get to the recipe! 🙂
After searching around the web for recipes, I finally decided to try this recipe from Oh She Glows. The seeds I used are from a couple ornamental pumpkins, so my process was slightly different from hers since the seeds are smaller.
- First, I washed the seeds and drained them.
- Place the seeds in a sauce pan with lots of water and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. This process is supposed to help them get nice and crunchy.
- When time is up, drain and lightly dry with a paper towel.
- Lightly coat with a spray of olive oil (or any other oil, even coconut), spread evenly on a cookie sheet and lightly sprinkle salt on top- I used finely ground Pink Himalayan salt.
- Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 10 minutes. Take out of oven to stir. At this point some of my seeds started to pop open, and they were really really crispy! For regular size pumpkin seeds you can place them back in the oven for another 8-10 minutes, but be sure to try some every few minutes or you might end up with burned seeds- yuck. Even if the outside coat doesn’t look brown, the inside seed is cooking, and will very quickly go from perfectly cooked to burned.
And that is it! A pretty quick way to turn pumpkin seeds into a delicious, nutritious snack. If you don’t want to use salt, try sprinkling other other spice combinations on them like cinnamon, cardamon, chili powder, curry powder, or whatever spice you like 🙂
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Sources:
Pumpkin Seed Benefits
Pumpkin Seeds