Roasting Pumpkin Seeds
The Halloween season brings with it spooky and ghoulish jack-o-lanterns, and while I thoroughly enjoy watching the kids carve pumpkins and even sometimes carving them myself, my favorite part of the experience is roasting the seeds afterward.
Through the years, I’ve learned a few tricks when it comes to roasting pumpkin seeds and wanted to share them with our readers. Below are my strategies for preparing and roasting this delicious snack.
- Bring large bowls to the carving site. Instead of putting all of the pumpkin guts in trash bags, put them in large bowls. That way, they’re already prepped for rinsing and draining.
- Fill the bowls with water and let the pumpkin seeds soak for about a couple of hours. During this time, you can begin picking out the pumpkin.
- Drain the pumpkin seeds in a colander and don’t worry if there is still pumpkin attached to the seeds (this will bake off when roasting).
- Lay the seeds flat on a cookie sheet (or multiple cookie sheets, depending on how many seeds you have), then pat them down with either a tea towel or a paper towel.
- Put the cookie sheets out in the sun where you can keep an eye on them and let them dry completely, if possible. The more dry, the better they will roast.
- Once dry, dump all the seeds into a large bowl and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Drizzle the seeds with extra virgin olive oil then add a dash of salt and pepper and 1 tsp of each: paprika, garlic powder and chili powder.
- Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every ten minutes.
- Take out a few seeds and taste; if they’re not to your liking, this would be the time to add more seasoning.
- Continue baking and stirring, baking and stirring until the seeds feel completely hard and stir around easily on the cookie sheet.
- Once they are finished, put them on a cooling rack and let them cool.
- After cooling, you can store them in containers and enjoy!
If you have any roasting suggestions or recipes involving pumpking and/or pumpkin seeds, we'd love to hear them and possibly share them in an upcoming Rumble issue. Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..