Sheet Pan

Sweet & Salty Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

by:
November  4, 2013
4.7
3 Ratings
Sweet & Salty Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
  • Prep time 15 minutes
  • Cook time 20 minutes
  • Makes 2 cups
Author Notes

Some people soak or boil their pumpkin seeds before roasting. But I know myself: If I don’t roast them right away, I will find a Ziploc bag filled with a stinky moldy stringy black seedy science project in the back of my fridge around Thanksgiving.

Thanks to a sweet and salty coating of balsamic vinegar, vanilla, brown sugar, olive oil, and salt, this recipe is a fun change from your typical roasted pumpkin seeds.

You can make the seeds sweeter or saltier. Or use butter instead of olive oil. Maybe even add some sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary. Play. This recipe is very forgiving. —Phyllis Grant

Test Kitchen Notes

We love to serve this recipe with the Basil Hayden Toast™—this tasty pairing's featured in our video series One Host, Two Ways, brought to you by our friends at Basil Hayden®. —The Editors

What You'll Need
Ingredients
  • 2 small sugar pumpkins (yielding about 2 cups of seeds)
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (the thicker the better)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions
  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Cut the pumpkins in half. Scoop seeds and pulp into a large bowl. Cover with water. Stir a bit with your hands. Most of the seeds will float to the top. With a slotted spoon, scoop seeds into a colander. Remove as many of the remaining seeds from the pulp as possible. Discard pulp. Rinse seeds.
  3. Spread the seeds out on a dishtowel and then blot with a second dishtowel (don’t use paper towels or you will be eating roasted paper). It’s a bit time consuming because wet uncooked pumpkin seeds are very sticky. So put on your favorite song, take some deep breaths, and commit to at least 5 minutes of blotting and unsticking.
  4. Spread dry seeds out on a sheet pan covered with a Silpat or parchment paper. Sprinkle seeds with salt, brown sugar, olive oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Toss with your fingers until seeds are evenly coated.
  5. Place in the preheated oven. Check after 10 minutes. Stir. Make sure they’re cooking evenly. Put back in the oven for a few more minutes. They take about 15 to 20 minutes. But keep an eye on them. They go from a lovely caramelized brown to black very quickly. Allow to cool on the sheet pan. Store in a jar at room temperature. They stay crispy for a few days.
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  • Toni Guerrero-Wesley
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Phyllis Grant
Phyllis Grant is an IACP finalist for Personal Essays/Memoir Writing and a three-time Saveur Food Blog Awards finalist for her blog, Dash and Bella. Her essays and recipes have been published in a dozen anthologies and cookbooks including Best Food Writing 2015 and 2016. Her work has been featured both in print and online for various outlets, including Oprah, The New York Times, Food52, Saveur, The Huffington Post, Time Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Tasting Table and Salon. Her memoir with recipes, Everything Is Out of Control, is coming out April 2020 from Farrar Straus & Giroux. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and two children.

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6 Reviews

williams022016
williams022016 October 30, 2022
this a very detailed and comprehensive. It's is a great recipe blog work and the food is definitely delicious. I enjoyed looking at the food. I would love to talk to you. I have a blog: www.game5verse.com
Talk to me one day on my blog. I would definitely like to do a guest link
 
Toni G.
Toni G. October 26, 2015
Stuck to parchment paper wasted most of them. But very yummy
 
hsubuck
hsubuck January 15, 2015
easy and addictive. i wasn't sure about whether to shell but we ate with.
 
walofvancouver
walofvancouver November 10, 2013
Made them tonight after washing and drying out the seeds. EXCELLENT! I had to keep them in the over for about 30 minutes and at 375 for the last 20 minutes as the mixture took a while to caramelize and then crisp up. Well worth the wait however. They are perfect as snacks or added to a salad!
 
Rita S.
Rita S. November 6, 2013
Sorry if it's a dumb question but you don't eat the husk, do you?
 
Helens
Helens November 8, 2013
You can eat the husk, or you can shell them. I recently roasted some and I was worried after the parboiling that the husks would be too tough, but by the time they came out of the oven they had turned from fibrous to crunchy.

That said, next time, I think I'll shell them just to see the difference, so I know if its worth the effort. This was the method I was planning on using: http://www.wikihow.com/Shell-Pumpkin-Seeds