Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Intro: Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Try roasting the seeds next time you carve a pumpkin!  Roasted pumpkin seeds are easy, tasty, and the healthiest thing you'll eat on Halloween.

STEP 1: Acquire Seeds

You've just scooped out a pumpkin or other winter squash, creating a nice pile of pumpkin guts and seeds. Take just a bit longer to squish through the mess, picking out the seeds and detaching as much of the stringy goo as possible. If you've got kids this is the perfect job for them.

Give your seeds a wash in the colander to remove a bit more of the sticky stuff. Don't stress too much about getting them perfectly clean- a bit of leftover pumpkin flesh will add flavor.

STEP 2: Oil and Season

Find a baking sheet with raised edges to prevent escapees.

Drizzle the baking sheet with olive oil, dump in your rinsed and drained seeds, and add seasonings. I used a combination of garlic salt and cajun spice here, but use whatever you like. Options include hot sauces, soy sauce, curry powder, worchestershire sauce, or anything else that makes your mouth happy.

Stir the seeds around with your fingers until they're all well covered in oil and spice. Lick your fingers to make sure you're happy with the spice mixture.

STEP 3: Bake

Toss them into the oven at 350-400F. Stir periodically to prevent sticking or burning. Have you ever made chex mix? This is about the same thing.

When they're golden brown on the edges, set them aside to cool. Be careful- hot oily pumpkin seeds will burn you.

Depending on how heavily you've loaded up your tray and the enthusiasm of your oven, it may take 15 - 30 minutes to toast your pumpkin seeds. The small amount I've used here made a nice thin layer, and toasted in about 15 minutes. Keep checking, and stir frequently.

STEP 4: Serve

Serve warm or at room temperature. Just make sure to keep hungry fingers clear until they've cooled off enough to eat.

I've seen these served out of a hollowed-out mini pumpkin lined with foil, but am far too lazy to do this myself much less take a picture of it for you- we just eat them off the pan as soon as they're not going to burn us too badly.

Comments

[lime3D]

DON'T WASH THE SEEDS! Washing removes all the pumpkin flavor!

[TrishD8]

TRUE !!! i do not clean them

[drusso3]

This is a good one i was doing this on the fly with pumpkin guts everywhere. so I used what I had in the cabinet Adobo worked great.

[kdemenz]

Just polished these off while watching Halloween 2 after carving my pumpkin for this year. I used EVOO and kosher salt. 15 min at 400 degrees and they were very tasty.

[kikkim]

Amazing post and a great idea - I got a bit over excited and used lots of powdered sugar and cinnamon and my roasted pumpkin seeds turned in to cinnamon sugar pumpkin seed brittle!!

[canida]

Oh wow, that sounds amazing! I'll have to give that a try on purpose. :)

Thanks for sharing your picture!

[NVDevastator]

Garlic powder, I may just have to try that. I have done this with cinnamon and sugar and they're soooo delicious

[scampbell-vincent]

I make mine with Lawry's seasoning salt, garlic powder, and Italian seasonings. so good! I also roast in butter with salt, the way my mama taught me. I have three pumpkins on my counter right now that I'm about to gut. Lol. thanks for this!

[explosivemaker]

IDEA!!!!!

why not cook some and then put it in some chex mix?.....hmmmmmm

[Diabloscope]

OH YEA !!!

[canida]

I love this idea!

[BOT Micheal]

one tip for seperating the seeds from the flesh, if you have ever noticed while rinsing off the seeds, they float. what i always do is take all of the guts from carving the pumpkins and just put them in a big enough bowl of water, squish it all together to seperate the seeds from the flesh then just skim them off from the top of the water with a spoon, works great and you dont have to try and pick up all the slippery seeds from the table

[Kaiven]

Thank you. I just made some delicious pumpkin seeds. Have not eaten any in 9 years.

[AndyGadget]

I made some a few days ago, some with Indian spices and some with jerk seasoning and they were ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!
Thanks for the recipe - I'll be trying it with butternut squash seeds too.

[mayday295]

wish i would have read this before i made my seeds..... burnt the crap out of them!!!

[Patented]

ahhhh ! I made some like these last halloween, it was so delicious!!

[StarFace]

I've been making these for years and I was starting to think I was one of the only people that did haha!
Another alternative is to put sugar etc on to them to make them a bit sweeter! For anyone that's on a diet etc these are ideal 'cos they are sooo nice... and still sooo healthy too!
Nice instructable =)

[Jason Gagne]

I find that it's easy to separate the seeds if you run water over them in an colander, not just to rinse them off but to separate ..

[Jayefuu]

These look great! I will be making some from the leftover seeds from the pumpkin I used for soup. Will be making an ible on it so will link through so people don't chuck their seeds away! Please could you also add to step 3 that 350-400F is 180 - 210 Celcius. Our European ovens don't have Fahrenheit on them!

[hornysasquatch]

i just made up a batch useing roasted garlic and mesquite seasoning. taste amazing! im thinking of buying a few cheap pumpkins and making more. including a sweet version with 1/2-oil, 1/2honey, cinnamon, and nutmeg.