Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I like to save the seeds from our Halloween carving pumpkin and toast them for a snack that is both tasty and healthy. Making your own pumpkin seeds is easy and means less waste… why throw away the seeds when you can eat them?

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

To make roasted pumpkin seeds simply reserve the seeds from the inside of a pumpkin. Remove as much gunk as you can, but don't rinse the seeds because that is where the pumpkin flavor is. Simply spread them on a cookie sheet and leave them out to dry overnight. My medium sized pumpkin yielded 1 1/4 cups of seeds.

When you are ready to toast them preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Drizzle a tsp of olive oil over the seeds and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Rub the seeds with your hands to distribute the oil and seasonings. Then bake them for 10 minutes. These seeds are not chewy, but have a nice crunch and pumpkin seed flavor. Store them in a glass jar or another air tight container.

Pumpkin seeds have protein, fiber, zinc, and magnesium. So you can snack away guilt free. Also, experiment with flavors; try adding herbs, nutritional yeast, cinnamon and sugar, or any other combination that sounds good to you.