A couple days ago I had the fun task of cleaning out 3 large pumpkins. They were going to be carved at my son’s cub scouts pack meeting activity. Usually I just throw everything inside the pumpkins away, but this year I decided to keep the pumpkin seeds and try roasting them. I had never before tried roasting pumpkin seeds, and had no idea how one does it. So I googled some instructions, and was surprised at how simple it was to do.
Once I had all the pumpkin seeds gathered from the insides of the pumpkins, I did my best to rinse them off. I wanted to get rid of as much of the pumpkin pulp as possible from the seeds. I laid them out to dry overnight on a cookie sheet lined with foil and paper towels. The next morning I started the process of roasting them. I ended up doing three batches. Since the pumpkins I cleaned out were so large, I got about 5 or 6 cups of seeds out of them.
I started out by melting about 3 teaspoons of butter in a small mixing bowl, you can also use olive oil if you prefer. Then add the seasoning. Each batch I did, I changed the seasonings I used. One batch I used garlic salt, the next batch I used Cajun seasoning, and the last batch I just used plain salt. I didn’t use any particular measurement for the seasonings. Use as much, or as little as you like. I think mine were a little under seasoned to my taste, but they still turned out great.
Once you have your butter (or oil) and seasoning in the bowl, then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of pumpkin seeds. Stir well to coat the seeds. Spread the seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet, I lined my baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Bake them in the oven at 300° for about 45 minutes, or until golden, stirring occasionally.
They turned out great, and the kids love snacking on them. If I would have know they were this easy to make, I would have saved the seeds from our pumpkins last year. This is definitely going to be a new Halloween time tradition.
