How To Eat Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Did you know that aside from planting them to get more pumpkins or eating them as snacks, pumpkin seeds are also a great addition to your salads, soups, stews, baked goods, and so much more!

If you’re someone who has just discovered that pumpkin seeds are not just a delicious and healthy snack but also a great ingredient to use in various dishes, you’ve come to the right place. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the different ways you can eat pumpkin seeds.

The basic way to cook pumpkin (or sunflower) seeds is roasting. Roasted pumpkin seeds are easy to add to many dishes.

How To Roast Pumpkin Seeds

If you’re using raw store-bought pumpkin seeds and you already have raw unshelled seeds, you can skip to the roasting process.

If you collected the pumpkin seeds from a fresh pumpkin, the first step in roasting pumpkin seeds is collecting and cleaning the pumpkin seeds.

Collecting And Cleaning The Pumpkin Seeds

Here’s how:

1. Prepare your workstation. Cover your table with paper for easy clean-up.
2. Carefully scoop pumpkin seeds from the fresh pumpkin and put them in a bowl or directly on your paper-covered table.
3. Manually separate the seeds from the chunks of pumpkin guts or the stringy pumpkin fibre and pumpkin pulp.
4. Place the pumpkin seeds in a strainer or colander and rinse them while also picking out any pumpkin guts.
5. When they are clean, pat the pumpkin seeds dry with a kitchen towel. Do not use paper towels because they can rip and stick to the wet pumpkin seeds. 

You can now move on to the next step, which is drying the seeds.

There are different ways to dry pumpkin seeds.

You can view our easy guide here for more details on the other methods, but today we’ll be using the Sun Drying or Air Drying Method. Easy Guide To Drying Pumpkin Seeds To Eat.

Drying

1. Spead the clean pumpkin seeds in a single layer on a tray or even clean cardboard.
2. Place the tray or cardboard out in the Sun for sun drying. For air drying, you can just leave the tray or cardboard on your kitchen counter.
3. Stir the pumpkins occasionally every few hours to ensure even drying.
4. Leave the pumpkin seeds to dry for at least 4 hours or until fully dry. Usually, they’re dry enough after leaving them overnight. 

You know the pumpkin seeds are completely dry when they easily break when bent or crispy. 

Roasting

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C) and prepare a dry baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper
2. Brown your dried pumpkin seeds with melted butter over medium-low heat in a large skillet for about 10 minutes while stirring constantly.
3. Once the seeds turn slightly brown in colour, remove them from the heat and drain the excess melted butter.
4. Season with salt or other spices. You can use anything you want, really. You can add as much seasoning as you want or just stick to seasoned salt like garlic salt. 

Season accordingly while roasting if you will be adding them into recipes with pumpkin seeds. 

1. When they’re evenly coated with the spices, spread the seasoned pumpkin seeds in one layer on the prepared baking sheet.
2. Bake or roast pumpkin seeds in the preheated oven for around 35-45 minutes or until crisp and golden brown. Make sure to stir occasionally or every 10 minutes to prevent burning and for even roasting.

Different Ways To Use Roasted Pumpkin Seeds 

1. Garnish – the easiest way to add roasted pumpkin to your dish is to add them on top of your dish as a topping or garnish, especially on soups. 
2. Add them into salads – the roasted pumpkin seeds will add a satisfyingly crunchy texture and taste to your favorite salad recipes.
3. Add them into oatmeal – make your plain oatmeal extra special by adding some texture with roasted pumpkin seeds.
4. Use them to top cakes – grind the roasted pumpkins to add texture to cakes.
5. Use them to top baked goods – top your bread, scones, or pumpkin pies with pumpkin seeds to make them more special. You can add them before baking or add them as crumble topping. You can also make them into cookies. 
6. Add them into hummus – you can add the roasted pumpkin seeds while blending hummus to add a nutty flavour to it.
7. Add them into guacamole – adding some roasted pumpkin seeds into guacamole will give it more texture and crunch.
8. Use them as a crust or crunchy coating for fried stuff – coat your fish or other meat with crushed pumpkin seeds before frying them for added crunch.

Different Ways To Use Raw Pumpkin Seeds 

1. Make them into pumpkin seed butter – make a healthier spread by using pumpkin seeds instead of nuts in your favourite peanut butter recipe to make a pumpkin seed butter. 
2. Add them into pesto – simply mix and blend them together with your favourite pesto ingredients.
3. Add them into baked goods – knead them into the dough of your bread before baking to add texture.
4. Add them into granola bars – simply add them to your favourite fruit and seed granola bar recipe.
5. Make them into dressing – make a creamy dressing by blending them with some oil and your favourite herbs and spices. 

Recipe

Pumpkin Seed Butter

Ingredients

• 3 cups or 500g of roasted pumpkin seeds

Direction

1. Blend the pumpkin seeds in a food processor or high-speed blender until smooth. 
2. Pause every once in a while to ensure the pumpkin seed butter and the machine don’t overheat. Blend for a total of 20 minutes, pausing every 3 minutes or so. The longer you blend, the runnier the consistency of your butter will be. You can also work in batches.
3. Season as prefered.
4. Once smooth, you can now transfer your pumpkin seed butter into an airtight glass container. You can store this in the pantry, fridge, or freezer. 

Moreover, you should also read our article about how to eat roasted pumpkin seeds.

Final Words

Pumpkin seeds are really versatile, and you can add them to virtually anything as an ingredient or garnish.

You can use pumpkin seeds as a substitute for nuts and add them to any healthy recipe you want to add more texture.

If you’re adding roasted pumpkin seeds to your recipes, make sure to season your pumpkin seeds appropriately so they match the dish, or better yet, stick to basic flavours like salted pumpkin seeds so that you can use your roasted pumpkin seeds in readily for anything – you wouldn’t want to add a spicy pumpkin seed to a cheesecake bar, do you? 

Now you have more ways to enjoy pumpkin seeds than just straight-up snacking on them. 

See you in another article!