Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Don’t throw away the pumpkin seeds from your pumpkin! Roast them for a delicious healthy Halloween snack.

Fall 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.

I love to 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.

Don’t throw out your pumpkin seeds!

How to Get the Strings off Pumpkin Seeds

When you first scoop the seeds out of the pumpkin, it seems like it will be impossible to separate the sticky, clingy strings from the seeds. Not so!

Just rinse the mass of seeds and strings under cool water and the seeds will separate easily. The leftover strings can be discarded or composted.

The Best Way to Salt Pumpkin Seeds

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 the method I learned from my mother years ago 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.

How Long to Bake Pumpkin Seeds

Regardless of the size or number of your seeds, bake them at 400°F. Watch them carefully — they’re done when they begin to lightly brown. Small pumpkin seeds may toast in around 5 minutes or so, while large pumpkin seeds may take up to 20 minutes.

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