Pumpkin Seeds- Finally Done Right. Yeah!

The last four Octobers have come and gone. We have carved pumpkins each year and saved the seeds to roast in the oven to make a tasty snack. Unfortunately, most of our creations have turned out inedible. The ones that were decent were only good for a few bites and then we agreed to toss them.

We tried rinsing and completely drying then adding seasoning, adding the seasoning while they were still wet, and even adding some oil and then seasoning. We tried all different flavor combos and none of them have worked out.... until tonight!



I'm not sure if it was the oven temperature that was the problem before, or just the simple fact that Alton Brown is a genius, but his way of doing pumpkin seeds totally worked for us. He does them in a pan on the stovetop!

Duh! Why didn't we think of this before? You monitor the entire process so they come out perfect! You roast them as long or short as you like, you are constantly stirring them so none of them get burned, and you can adjust the flavor as you go!

We chose to do two different flavors. For the first one I used olive oil, salt, cracked pepper, and seasoning salt. They turned out pretty good. We were just happy they were edible!
 For the second one we decided to go a more flavorful route. We had a bottle of Old Taylor Street Cheese Sprinkle from The Spice House in Chicago that I bought for Steve last Christmas to use on his popcorn. Turns out it's not as good on popcorn as I was told it would be, but lucky for us, it's excellent on pumpkin seeds!

I used the same base of olive oil, salt, and pepper. I added the cheese sprinkle and had Steve taste it to make sure it didn't need anything else. After they cooled down the flavor was outstanding!

We couldn't believe what we had been missing out on all of these years!! Now that we have a technique that makes the seeds turn out the texture we want, our options of flavors are endless! What will we try next year?!?

The basic pumpkin seed recipe and technique
1 C. pumpkin seeds
2 T. olive oil
a few dashes of salt (or however much you prefer)
a few twists of the pepper grinder (or however much you prefer)
any amount of any other seasoning your prefer

Heat the oil in a skillet on the stove. Add pumpkin seeds. Top with salt, pepper, and seasoning of your choice. Stir continuously for 5-10 minutes until you have reached your preferred coloring and doneness.

It's just that easy! If you try it out, let me know how it worked for you and what flavors you tried!