I thought that title sounded a little catchier than “I spent a whole day making 4 different kinds of pumpkin seeds just because I wanted to.”
But the second is probably closer to the truth.
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Our youth carved pumpkins a week ago, and I asked them to save the seeds for me. I’d tried baking pumpkin seeds last year, but they weren’t exactly what I was hoping for. This year, I found 3 recipes to try and then decided to come up with my own as well.
I’ll post them in the order that I made them, and then I’ll tell you the “winner” at the end.
By the way, we had about a million pumpkin seeds (around 9 cups to be exact). This is what it looked like after I took the ones for the first batch out:
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The first recipe was one I found on Tasty Kitchen (shock, huh?). In fact, all of the ones but the one I made up are from Tasty Kitchen.
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Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (by Charity – Nutty Cook)
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Ingredients
- 2 cups Pumpkin Seeds
- 3 Tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce
- 3 Tablespoons Butter (real)
- Salt (coarse Is Best)
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Instructions
- Wash pumpkin seeds getting most of the pumpkin off.
- Melt butter in a small bowl.
- Add Worcestershire sauce to the butter and stir.
- Add butter mixture to the seeds and stir well.
- Spread seeds onto a LARGE cookie sheet (the cookie sheet needs to have sides or this won’t work).
- Sprinkle well with salt. I like to use the coarse salt, but table salt works, too.
- Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours or until crunchy.
OH MY. These were yummy! They were super salty, and they were nice and crisp. Michael even loved them!
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Seasoned Squash/Pumpkin Seeds (by Keren)
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Ingredients
- 3 cups Squash Seeds
- 4 cups Warm Or Hot Water
- 3 Tablespoons Salt
- ½ cups Vinegar
- 2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
- ½ teaspoons Dried Dill
- ½ teaspoons Ground Pepper
- ½ teaspoons Salt
Intructions
- Clean the squash meat off of the seeds, then soak the seeds in the water, salt and vinegar for a couple of hours. (NOTE: I did this while the other batch was in the oven and the timing was perfect.)
- Drain and then dry the seeds with a dish towel. Then coat with the melted butter, dill, pepper and salt.
- Spread on a greased 11×15 pan. Bake at 300°F for 1 hour. Stir occasionally to ensure even browning. Enjoy!
(Sorry — I must have forgotten to take a “finished product” pic.)
These were good, but they didn’t turn out as crispy, and the flavor wasn’t as strong.
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The last ones I tried from Tasty Kitchen were actually cooked out of the shells. I was excited about this one since I didn’t like the shells from the ones I made last year. Since I had actual pumpkin seeds, I had to crack open the shells to get the “meat” out. This wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. It took me over an hour to get a 1/2 cup (the recipe calls for 1 cup), and I gave up there. It also made my fingernails sore for a couple of days. So if you want to make these, I recommend going to the store and getting the inside seeds like the recipe calls for.
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Pepitas (Pumpkin Seeds) (by holderman1325)
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Ingredients
- 1 cup Pumpkin Seeds Out Of The Shell
- 4 cloves Crushed Garlic
- ¼ teaspoons Salt
- ¼ teaspoons Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
- 1 teaspoon Sugar
- 1 slice Lime
Instructions
- Heat a small heavy frying pan, add the pumpkin seeds and dry-fry for a few minutes, stirring constantly as they swell. If you don’t stir them, they will burn!
- When most seeds have swollen, add the garlic and cook for a few more minutes, stirring constantly. (What would be worse than burnt pumpkin seeds? Burnt garlic!)
- Add the salt and the crushed red pepper and stir to mix. Turn off the heat, but keep the pan on the burner.
- Sprinkle sugar on the seeds and shake the pan to ensure that they are all coated.
- Squeeze some lime juice (I use it out of a green plastic lime, it’s okay!) and stir in the pan to cook some of it off and distribute the flavor.
- Transfer to a bowl and voila – delish!
- The seeds are kinda sticky from the juice, but still so tasty. Don’t want to get your fingers messy? Use a spoon! I usually double the recipe, but beware – that means you’ll eat twice as much!
- Also, I buy these seeds in bulk at a food store. You can’t just pull the seeds out of a carving pumpkin and get these. Look at the picture – way different!
These were pretty good, but my cloves of garlic must have been bigger than hers. It was even too garlic-y for me — and I love garlic! It was so garlic-y that it almost had a hot flavor (if you’ve every overdone it on the garlic, you know what I’m talking about). So if I make them again, I’ll buy out of the shell seeds and use less garlic.
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This last recipe is one that I made up. I’d made sweet pumpkin seeds last year and they were ok, but not the greatest. So this year I took parts from the other recipes (like amt of butter and temp and things) and created my own sweet version.
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Sweet Pumpkin Seeds (by Staci)
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Ingredients
- 2 cups Pumpkin Seeds
- 4 Tablespoons Butter (real)
- 2 Tablespoons Sugar
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- Cinnamon and Sugar
Instructions
- Wash pumpkin seeds getting most of the pumpkin off.
- Melt butter in a small bowl.
- Add sugar and cinnamon to the butter and stir.
- Add seeds to the butter mixture and stir well.
- Spread seeds onto a cookie sheet with sides
- Sprinkle with more sugar and cinnamon.
- Bake at 250 degrees for 2 hours or until crunchy.
These actually turned out really good. I loved the sweet flavor. They could have used a little less butter (probably 3 to 3.5 Tbs instead). I’d also suggest playing around with other sweet ingredients (like nutmeg if you like that).
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The Outcome:
- Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (with Worcestershire Sauce and Salt) was by far our favorite.
- My Sweet Pumpkin Seeds were next in line (even though they had a completely different flavor…so it’s hard to compare the two).
- Seasoned Squash/Pumpkin Seeds (with the dill weed and black pepper) was third. It was good, but it didn’t have the edge the other two had.
- Pepitas (without the shell) were our least favorite. They were just too weird and garlic-y. And they definitely weren’t worth the hour of peeling and hurt fingernails.
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So there’s my Great Pumpkin Seed Bake-Off recipes and results! Any I should try next time?
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–Staci
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