The Crafty Cultivator

You know what I think is the perfect salty fall treat? Roasted squash seeds. Around here, it is the real reason we end up carving pumpkins for Halloween. Until this weekend, I had never thought of trying other squash seeds, other than pumpkin… But we are officially won over with the butternut squash seeds. They are a little smaller, but seem a little less fibrous… and less likely to get stuck in teeth

Whenever I make roasted pumpkin seeds, I have never really followed a recipe (but I may have to experiment with a few that are out there). For now, I thought I might share with you the way my mom showed me how to do these.

It is ridiculously easy.

Step 1: Take the seeds out of whatever squash you are using (I’m thinking of trying some acorn squash seeds next).

Step 2: Separate them from as much of the pulp as possible. You can leave some if you want, it does crisp up nice, but can also burn if you are not careful.

Step 3: Rinse the seeds off in cold water

Step 4: Soak the seeds in a salty water bath. There isn’t a recipe here, just make it salty. You are essentially brining the seeds. Soak for at least an hour, but a few hours is better. You can also add in other flavours here as well, for example, with my butternut seeds, I added a little sage to the “brine”.

Step 5: For ease of clean up, I usually wrap my cookie sheet in aluminium foil. I recommend doing this, but it isn’t completely necessary.

Step 6: Drain your seeds. You can dry them a little if you feel it is necessary, but it really isn’t. You can preheat your oven to 200F right now too.

Step 7: Sprinkle a little seasoning salt onto the seeds and toss them around to evenly distribute the salt. Use as much or as little as you want.

Step 8: Spread your salted seeds out evenly on the prepared cookie sheet, and place into your oven. Store them around every 10-15 minutes until they are crispy and dried. This usually takes around an hour, depending on the amount of seeds you are preparing.

Step 9: Once cool, place into an air tight container. If they last long enough to need storage.