Savory Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
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This recipe for savory roasted pumpkin seeds makes a healthy, frugal, vegan snack. Pumpkin seeds are easy to roast in the oven, so don’t throw them away!
Roasted pumpkin seeds are one of my daughter’s favorite snacks. They’re a nutritional powerhouse, rich in several minerals including iron and zinc. They’re also high in antioxidants and protein, so a handful of roasted pumpkin seeds is a highly beneficial snack. Of course my daughter doesn’t care about that. She’s only interested in the taste, and she can’t get enough of these.
To get the right texture, simmer the seeds in a pot of boiling water before roasting them. Keep an eye on them while they’re in the oven so they don’t get too brown. Fifteen minutes is usually a good bake time to get the right texture.
You can add a little more chili powder, salt, or other seasoning as desired. These are addictive!
And if you’re wondering what to do with the rest of the pumpkin, here’s a tutorial about how to roast a sugar pumpkin to make homemade pumpkin puree.
Savory Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Recommended Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups pumpkin seeds removed from 2 sugar pumpkins
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp chili powder
- 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Remove the seeds from a sugar pumpkin and clean them thoroughly. You want to remove all the stringy pumpkin bits.
- Simmer the seeds in a pot of gently boiling water for 10 minutes.
- Drain the seeds and pat dry with a clean cloth.
- In a small bowl, mix together the salt, onion powder, chili powder, and cayenne pepper.
- Place the pumpkin seeds in a bowl and cover evenly with olive oil. Add the seasoning mixture and stir to coat.
- Place the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes. They’re done when they’re nice and crispy, but not brown.
- Remove the seeds from the oven and let them cool. Store in an airtight container.
- These pumpkin seeds taste wonderful out of the oven, but if they're still around the next day, they lose their crunch. To get them crispy again, put them under the broiler on low for 2 minutes. Good as new!
Approximate Nutrition Info
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Savory Roasted Pumpkin Seeds Price Breakdown
It’s tricky to do a price breakdown for this recipe. The pumpkins cost $1 each, so how much are the seeds worth? Many people just throw the seeds away. I’ll say the seeds cost $.25 per pumpkin. At that rate, this recipe costs a total of $.73 to make, or $.12 per ¼ cup serving. These seeds are an affordable, healthy snack.
For a sweeter snack, try my Cinnamon Spice Roasted Pumpkin Seeds.
My family grew up making pumpkin seeds every fall and I LOVE them!! We would just put salt on them, but your spice combo sounds fantastic!
Pumpkin seeds are such a wonderful snack! :] These look delicious
Oh good idea about boiling them in water first!
Cathy, boiling the pumpkin seeds helps them absorb the spices better, and it also yields crunchier seeds.
I’ve roasted pumpkin seeds lots of times, but never done the boiling. What is that step for? Mine also stay crunchy.
I’m glad it worked for you with the adjusted bake time and temperature, Kirsten. It sounds like you had quite a mountain of seeds!
Thank you for this recipe! I made 4 batches yesterday afternoon (with all those seeds). I had more seeds, probably, than you did on each sheet, so I ended up baking hotter and longer, but the end result was delicious. Thank you!
I’m so glad it worked for you, Peter! I’ve done it without boiling the seeds, but they do come out better this way.
I have tried to make pumpkin seeds a million times and never successfully until now! Thank you. This year our neighbor’s 4 year old became a pumpkin carving artist extraordinaire, so there are seeds galore!! The step I had no idea about was to boil the seeds! Thank you
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I like the math and gardening humor! Enjoy the roasted seeds.
I’ve bookmarked this to try it. We’ve decided to carve pumpkin pi for Halloween since I got huge pumpkins at Aldi and have the decimal point from the volunteer pumpkins in the garden. So that’s a lot of pumpkin guts (3.1415)
Thanks!