Don’t Toss Those Pumpkin Seeds!

By CDBeck | AtHome | 1 Dec 2020

Eat the seeds. They are nutritious, low calorie, high fiber, and eating them with the shells will give you extra fiber.

My usual winter squash is acorn squash and I always roast the seeds. So when I cut a fresh pumpkin for the Thanksgiving Day Pumpkin Pie, I just had to roast the seeds. Here is what I did.

Step 1 – Soak the Seeds

I start by soaking the seeds in salt water at least 7 to 8 hours.

Pumpkin seeds soaking in brine

These seeds have been soaking at room temperature for a couple of days.

Here the seeds are still attached to the membranes. I put the seeds in a quart jar with 2 tablespoons of salt, filled the jar to the brim with water, and stirred to mix. The seeds float so I put an upside-down lid on the top to hold them under the water.

Step 2- Drain the Seeds

Drained pumpkin seeds with membranes

I dumped the seeds with membranes into a colander to drain and separated out the seeds. (Membranes went into the compost pile.) I rinsed the seeds with water and let the water drain off.

Washed pumpkin seeds

Step 3 – Roast the Seeds

Everything up to this point is the way I prepare my acorn squash seeds. Since pumpkin seeds are larger, I increased the oven temperature to 350˚ F/ 177˚ C (from 325˚ F/ 163˚ C that I use for acorn squash.)

Raw pumpkin seeds on cookie sheet

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F/ 177˚ C. Spread seeds in a single layer on a cookie sheet and roast for 25 to 30 minutes. The roasted seeds usually come away from the pan with little sticking so I didn’t bother oiling the pan first.

The Results

The seeds have just the right amount of salt. However, they didn’t toast uniformly. I had seeds ranging from dark golden brown to pale ivory. The dark golden brown seeds are the crunchiest, the pale seeds are a bit chewy, but still good. Note to self – periodically stir the pumpkin seeds while roasting!

Roasted pumpkin seeds