Have you ever wondered what you could do with all those seeds you get after emptying a pumpkin?
Well, rather than just throw them away, you can actually use them. Not all seeds are useless, in fact many are highly nutritious – like the pumpkin seed, which comes with a lot of health benefits including treating depression, improved bladder function, the Prevention of Osteoporosis and even the prevention of cancer.
Pumpkin seeds actually have a lot of significance in cooking. As you may, or may not be aware, pumpkin seeds with their covering or hulls removed, are famous in Mexican cooking.
One of the best ways to work with pumpkin seeds is to roast them. Roasting pumpkin seeds is very straight forward.
Pumpkin seeds, once roasted offer a lot of unique benefits. The roasted and salted seeds have a delectable nutty flavor. They’ll help give a unique taste to any recipe or dish that you add them to. They can also work well in combination with other spices especially the sweet or hot ones.
So, here’s a nice and straight forward little pumpkin seed recipe that involves roasting pumpkin seeds…
- First of all make sure that you get your seeds from a pumpkin that is fresh, this will make a noticeable difference to the taste.
- Clean them off using cold water making sure you get rid of as much string and flesh as you can so you only have seeds. This can sometimes be a little bit time consuming, but if you persist you’ll soon get there :o)
- Rinse the seeds making sure that there are no bits of string, flesh or pulp attached to them as these will burn in the oven.
- Soak in salt water for a while. This is optional but will give you a better result
- Dry them off with a kitchen towel and spread them evenly over a baking/cookie sheet.
- Now is the time to flavour / season them. While some people prefer just to sprinkle salt over them, others prefer to baste them with butter or oil. Many people like to add flavours to the oil such as garlic, lemon, cinnamon or ginger all depending on whether you want a sweet, savory, spicy or natural flavour. It’s worth experimenting with different flavourings when you are Roasting Pumpkin Seeds to see what works best for you
- Next it’s time to cook them. Put the tray inside the oven and bake at about 280 degrees Fahrenheit until they go a nice golden brown colour. Cooking times will vary quite considerably between batches and can be for as low as 10-15 minutes or as much as 30 minutes, so you do need to keep an eye on them because they can start to burn very quickly.
- They can be stored after cooling in an air-sealed or air-tight container.
Using this pumpkin seed recipe makes it a nice and straight forward process, and will provide you with a delicious and nutritious snack from food material many people would otherwise throw out.
I challenge you to give it a try next time you have pumpkin, or decide to throw a halloween party and find yourself with an excess of pumpkin seeds.