Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

The weather is finally starting to cool down and everything pumpkin spice has hit the shelves. It’s time to start buying pumpkins to carve or to make delicious pumpkin pies. When you do decide to carve up that pumpkin, remember that those seeds can be a great snack and fairly easy to make.

If you happen to have the little plastic scooping tool that comes with the Jack O’Lantern kits then this is even easier but a spoon can also be used to do the scooping. Recently I had several pumpkins from the garden that I processed in just this way so that I could use the pumpkin later (froze it) but also had the seeds for a snack.

If you are cutting up the pumpkin, it is a little easier to get the seeds out than if you are carving for decoration. Cut the pumpkin in half, and then scrape out the insides as smoothly as possible. If you are able to get the seeds out in a ball of pulp, it is actually easier to pop those seeds directly out of that pulp and rinse in a strainer. Otherwise you may have little pieces of pulp stuck to the seeds that you have to manually remove. It just adds some extra work. Similarly if you are scooping the seeds out of the pumpkin you are carving, it may be a bit messier to try to save all the seeds.

Once you have the seeds out, strain them under water to get the pumpkin juice and pulp off of them. Then let them dry for a little while. I usually just let them sit out in a thin layer for about an hour or so and even speed this up sometimes by drying them with a towel (but they like to stick to towels so leaving them be may be easier).

Then take about 1-2 tsp of butter and melt it in the microwave. It doesn’t take much butter to add a little flavor so for 1 pumpkin, about 1 tsp is usually good. Then you can decide if you want to make them sweet and add sugar and cinnamon or salty or spicy. So many options. I usually just add a few turns of the salt shaker and mix this all with the seeds.

Lay them flat on a nonstick cookie pan. Cook for 40 minutes at 300 degrees. Let cool and enjoy. The great thing is that you can do this with any type of squash seed. I recently roasted butternut squash seeds with butter and salt and they were delicious. Just remember to put them in an air tight container once they cool. Enjoy!