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How to Roast
Pinon & Pine nuts

Conventional oven roasting
microwave recipes follow

Careful! Piñon nuts are burn easily!

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How to Roast Pinon & Pine nuts in a Conventional Oven

The New Mexico Pinon Nut Company offers delicious fresh in shell and roasted Pinon pine nuts online here. We would like to share some roasting tips with you Remember to wash the Pinon nuts (pine nuts) before you cook them. Put them in a spaghetti colander and wash them off. Add salt if you like, there is no such thing as too much as it falls off easily.. (Remember early season fresh pinon nuts takes longer to roast because they have moisture in them, and only trust taste testing because if you only look at the clock - they are going to burn...)

1) Preheat your oven to 325.

2) Wash them.

3) Spread the wet salted or unsalted pinon nuts out one layer deep on a baking pan, and put them in the oven.

4) Start taste testing after 10 minutes. Some ovens can finish in 10 on the top rack and some take up to 20 minutes. The aroma will tell you when to taste test as this is the only way know. While taste testing watch to see that the color of the pinon kernel meat inside the shell will change from white to translucent. After this translucent phase, the kernel meat's color will change back to off white (almost like it was never roasted) then it will continue to change to a light creamy butterscotch. KEEP TASTE - TESTING.

5) Turn off the oven... they are almost ready. Taste test one or two pinon nuts every minute. Keep watching the color change of the kernel meat inside the shell. Be prepared to take them out immediately... when they hit that light creamy butterscotch color - they are done.... Cool them off so they don't burn...

Make sure when they are cooling off you do not put them in a bowl - because only the top nuts will cool off and the rest will burn. Transfer them to another baking pan to stop the heat transfer if you need too. Consider setting them outside to cool in the breeze if you need to.

The nuts will develop into a full manila envelope color while cooing off - mm mm you did it! Remember the smell coming from the oven as they were almost ready... this is the smell you will watch out for net time....the aroma tells me everything...

Once you get the hang of it you might take them out before they hit the creamy butterscotch but keep them on the hot baking pan and let them finish roasting on the stovetop out of the oven. Just remember to taste test and they wont burn... otherwise they will....

The roasting time and temperature required will depend on how much moisture is still in the nuts (more moisture when fresh picked, and the altitude you are cooking in. In the high desert, it takes us longer to cook everything. Fresh early season nuts: The earlier in the season you buy, the more moisture. The more moisture, the longer the pine nuts take to roast.

MICROWAVE

MICROWAVE: After washing and salting one pound pinon or pine nuts in a spaghetti colander (salt always optional) place the Pinon nuts in a microwave safe bowl. Cook 4-5 minutes. Stir them to keep the roast even. The nuts will begin to get translucent, first. Then put them back in for 2 minutes, take out and stir. Taste test. The nuts will continue cooking after you remove them from the microwave from the inside out. Keep putting them in for a minute each time and stir every so often... (If the nuts have not started to turn creamy - put them back in the microwave for one minute at a time.

You can always put them back in a little bit more if you are not satisfied... but you can't do anything if you have already burned the piñon nuts). Times vary because of differing microwave strengths.The main rule is "when the aroma starts, begin to taste and color test" When the sample changes from white and begins to become translucent,your 2/3ds there, cook for one minute more at a time till done... . After they are finished lay them on a baking sheet to cool off quickly, as if you leave them in the bowl the bottom ones will burn as they are still cooking.

 

We clean, roast and salt in a process that we have perfected.
We package and ship them and ship directly to you.

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