Description

I love pumpkin seeds. Yet, I’d always been disappointed with the options. The ones you can get in a convenience store are super crispy, but lack flavor beyond salt. Traditionally, I’ve baked seeds at home with tons of flavor, but they lacked the crackle and deep-down saltiness of the standard bagged seeds.

A few years back, I’d read somewhere that boiling them in salted water can help. (Wish I could remember where I saw this because I’d happily source them here… but it was well before the internet and likely from a magazine scrap.)

OMG… this tip changed how I enjoy homemade pumpkin seeds for life! Even better, my husband, stepdad, and kiddos all love how they turn out. Not spicy, but flavorful. Salty, but not overly. Simply just right.

Ingredients

Scale

Seeds from one pumpkin (about 1–2 cups)
1/4 cup salt (to boil the seeds)
2 cups water
1T seasoning mix (I used a mixture of garlic powder, garlic salt and cumin)
2T olive oil

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Instructions

Preheat oven to 300-degrees
Pull fresh seeds from a pumpkin. Ideally, one that was cut for a jack-o-lantern or making a pumpkin-based recipe. You’ll get anywhere from 1-2 cups per pumpkin. Of course this, varies.
Place seeds in a bowl of water. Wash the seeds by rubbing them between your hands. The pulp and goo will fall to the bottom of the bowl and the seeds will float.
Use your hands to remove the floating seeds from the cleaning bowl. Place them directly into a pan with 2 cups of boiling water and 1/4 cup salt
Boil the seeds for about 5 minutes. You’ll notice that they will become slightly saturated / darker. That means they’re done.
Strain the seeds from the water and place directly onto a baking dish.
Drizzle the seeds with 2T olive oil and sprinkle with about 1T seasoning mix
Place into 300-degree oven for approximately 35 minutes, or until the reach your desired level of ‘toast’
Let cool & enjoy!

Notes

Feel free to adjust the seasoning to fit your taste. The recipe recommends about 1T of seasoning total, so you can play a bit. Of course, I’d LOVE to add a bit of ancho chile powder, but my family would freak out. 🙂

You can also use butternut squash seeds (or really, any squash) with this recipe.

Typically, we eat these seeds straight, but they’re also delicious added to salads or sprinkled on top of pumpkin muffins.