Slow-Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

As a kid we always cut into our pumpkins, separated the gunk, washed the seeds, salted them and threw them in the toaster oven on high for 15 minutes and that’s how we toasted pumpkins seeds. Sometimes they would burn, sometimes they would cook the outer shell and then the inner seed was still raw. We still loved them.

Around the time my wife and I moved in together I wanted to share pumpkin seeds with her and I found this recipe online for slow-toasted seeds and I thought I would give it a shot. Over the years I've tinkered with the method and at this point I think I've got it down to a science. If you can take the time, give it a try and let me know if it was worth the wait.

Cut a hole into your pupkin and pull all of the seeds from the inside. I like to keep the seeds from each pumpkin separate to make it easier to cook them later. Clean off all of the excess flesh, and use a strainer to wash the seeds, then place them in a container with a lid (a take-out soup container works well). Pour enough water into the container to cover the seeds twice. If you’d like, add about 1 tablespoon of salt for each cup of seeds. Close the lid and leave them overnight.

The next day, strain the seeds through a strainer to get off as much excess watar as possible. Take a cookie sheet and spread the seeds out to one, flat layer and leave them out to dry (this can take several hours, but using a salad spinner, a fan, or dehydrator can help speed this along).

After letting the pumpkin seeds dry, move them to a small bowl and toss them in olive oil. About a teaspoon of oil for every cup of seeds should do.

Add a flavoring of your choice. Some that have worked well in the past:

• Cayenne pepper + sugar (applied at the 60 minute turn)
• Sweet chili sauce + Pappy's Hottest Ride hot sauce
• Tonkatsu Sauce + brown sugar (applied at the 60 minute turn)
• Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (or something with a similar texture) mixed into a little olive oil
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Cinnamon + Maple Syrup (put it on at the 60 minute turn and cook until seeds are crispy)

Strain seeds to remove excess oil and flavoring, then place seeds onto baking sheet.

Preheat the oven to 250°F (121.11°C) and bake for 80 minutes (breaking them up and stirring them around every 20 min). If you are using sugar or something similar, add it to the last 20 minutes so it doesn’t burn.

Before taking the seeds out, check to see if they are crunchy (sometimes the bigger seeds take longer). When cooked to your preference, let them cool down on baking sheet and store in a container or ziploc bag.

Every year I make at least one batch of the cayenne pepper + sugar seeds and then depending on how many other pumpkins we have I’ll experiment with different flavors. Usually I try to use different sauces or rubs that we have laying around and sometimes they are hits and sometimes we have misses. Generally I shoot for a combo of heat and sweetness and sometimes simplicity is where it’s at.

If you wind up using this method, please let me know what spices you wound up liking (or even which ones you think should be avoided). Enjoy!

Okay, so while we’re talking pumpkins I have another thing to suggest. I learned this during a pumpkin carving contest from a friend who is an artist.

A lot of folks cut a hole in the top of their pumpkin, grab the stem and pull off the top like a lid. It gives you good access to put a candle or a light inside, but as the pumpkin gets older and softer, or if you don’t cut it perfectly, you might see some light peaking out in a way that might not fit the rest of your design. A few years ago I learned that you could get a cleaner look by cutting the hole in the bottom of the pumpkin instead.

The hole in the bottom makes it easy to get all the seeds and gunk out and if you use a candle or LED tea light you now have a little base to put it on, then you put the shell of the pumpkin over the base.

I also learned to ditch the candles and instead put a light bulb inside your pumpkin! If you have an outlet within reach of where you display your jack-o-lanterns you can pick up an outdoor light socket and feed that into your pumpkin with an LED at the end of it. I usually cut a hole somewhere in the back of the pumpkin, place the socket into the hole, then go up through the big hole in the bottom of the pumpkin to screw the bulb in.

If you want to go for a really cool look you can find standard-size LED bulbs that have a built-in flame effect. Since we do multiple pumpkins per year, I picked up this outdoor work light string and took off the little cages. We use the flame-effect bulbs for the inside of the pumpkins and then I also picked up some ultraviolet bulbs to flood the background behind the pumpkins.

Happy pumpkining and enjoy the slow-cooked seeds!

This year I made a batch of Cayenne Pepper + Sugar seeds and a batch of Curry Madras (from a local spice shop, Stuart’s Spices.com. A. During this cook, the house smelled amazing. B. I went back to using the big oven to spread the seeds out better and I think it helped bring out the toasted flavor a bit more than last year’s in the toaster oven.