Make Use Of Those Left Over Pumpkin Seeds This Halloween By Roasting Them
Autumn has arrived and with it, the pumpkin season. There are always plenty of pumpkins to carve up around Halloween time and a great way to make use of the pumpkin seeds is to roast them for an easy, healthy snack.
You can eat them shells and all. If they’re properly toasted and are small to medium sized, they are wonderfully crunchy and easy to eat. The larger carving pumpkins will yield large seeds, which are probably best to eat shelled.
The challenge is, how to get the salt inside the shells to the seeds? It’s easy enough to salt the outside of the shells, but if you want the salt to permeate to the seeds this method does the trick.
Boil the seeds first in salted water, then toast them in the oven. This way the salt gets inside too. And you can control the amount of salt by how much you add to the water and how long you boil the seeds.
If you want to jazz up your pumpkin seeds, sprinkle with spices such as smoked paprika, cumin, or chilli powder before they go into the oven.
Ingredients
- One medium sized pumpkin
- Salt
- Olive oil
Method
1 Cut open the pumpkin by cutting a circle around the stem end with a sharp knife (knife blade angled in), and pulling off the top.
2 Use a strong metal spoon to scrape the insides of the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds and strings.
3 Place the mass of pumpkin seeds in a colander and run under water to rinse and separate the seeds from everything else.
4 Measure the pumpkin seeds in a cup measure. Place the seeds in a medium saucepan. Add 2 cups of water and 1 tablespoon of salt to the pan for every half cup of pumpkin seeds. Add more salt if you would like your seeds to be saltier.
5 Bring the salted water and pumpkin seeds to a boil. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and drain.
6 Preheat the oven to 400°F. Coat the bottom of a roasting pan or thick baking sheet with olive oil, about a teaspoon or so. Spread the seeds out over the roasting pan in a single layer, and toss them a bit to coat them with the oil on the pan. Bake on the top rack until the seeds begin to brown, 5-20 minutes, depending on the size of the seeds.
7 Small pumpkin seeds may toast in around 5 minutes or so, large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the pumpkin seeds so they don’t get over toasted. When lightly browned, remove the pan from the oven and let cool on a rack. Let the pumpkin seeds cool all the way down before eating.
Either crack to remove the inner seed (a lot of work and in my opinion, unnecessary) or eat whole.