Brown Sugar and Spice Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
You'll need to carve more pumpkins just for the seeds!
There’s one thing we absolutely must do after we carve pumpkins – roast the pumpkin seeds! We can think of a million and one different ways to season our leftover pumpkin seeds, our favorite is just a simple combination of olive oil, salt, and pepper. For this recipe, we’re going savory and sweet with a combination of melted butter, brown sugar, and some simple spices. Our night of pumpkin carving ends with the most amazing snack. In fact, we may need to carve a few more pumpkins in order to have more fresh seeds to roast!
Roasting pumpkin seeds is a bit of a messy project; squeezing all of those seeds from the pumpkin pulp is a slimy task! The effort is well worth the delicious wait as the treat that will soon pop out of our oven, all toasty, warm, and sweet is just so, so good. It’s important to get the seeds both as clean and as dry as possible in order to ensure a truly crispy, roasted pumpkin seed. Once the seeds have been prepared, they’re ready to be dressed with our sweet and savory mixture.
Raw pumpkin seeds are like a blank canvas, ready to take on just about any combination of flavors you can think of. Here we just use butter, brown sugar, some cinnamon, and ginger, plus a little bit of salt and pepper for a tasty combination of flavors. We love how the brown sugar gets nice and caramelized as the seeds roast in the oven. And the cinnamon and ginger add that savory element that pairs beautifully with the sweet sugar. Oh, and did we mention how good this smells as it roasts?!
It’s important to take the seeds out of the oven and toss them a bit in order to make sure everything roasts evenly, so we try to toss the seeds about every 10 minutes or so. Once they’re done, the seeds need to cool slightly on the sheet pan, and especially before you store them in an airtight container. But it’s not likely that the seeds will ever make it that far! What better way to end a night of pumpkin carving than with fresh roasted pumpkin seeds. We light up our pumpkins and watch them glow as we nibble on our sweet and spicy roasted pumpkin seeds. So good!
Brown Sugar and Spice Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups pumpkin seeds
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 9x13-inch baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Rinse fresh pumpkin seeds in a colander under cold water. Remove any excess pulp from the pumpkin. Shake out excess water. Spread seeds over a paper towel and pat gently to dry.
- Transfer pumpkin seeds to a medium-sized bowl. Set aside.
- Mix melted butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, and pepper together. Pour mixture over top of the pumpkin seeds and toss until seeds are evenly coated.
- Spread pumpkin seeds over the prepared baking sheet in a single layer.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes and again after 20 minutes, until seeds are caramelized and crispy.
- Enjoy warm. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Recipe adapted from Fork Knife Swoon.