Today I am going to share with you are recipe for making Delicious Crispy Nuts, which also happens to be an explanation of why and how you should be soaking nuts and seeds.
Have you:
- heard about soaking nuts and seeds, but you don't why you should do it? or
- do you know it is important but think that you just can't fit it into your schedule? or
- have you heard about Crispy Nuts, but don't know what they are?
Well, I am here to clear all of that up.
Why You Should be Soaking Nuts and Seeds
1. It helps with digestibility
2. It's easier and takes less time than you think
3. You can skip using oils, which are on many store-bought nuts. Some of those oils are canola, etc. which typically are GMO and/or are processed with chemicals.
4. They just plain taste better this way!
Nuts and seeds are a wonderful addition to your diet. They have a bounty of healthy fats, minerals, protein and vitamins. However, they can also be a bit rough on your stomach. That's because they contain phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors that prevent them from being digested well and that can be detrimental to your health.
The answer to this problem is simple: soak your nuts and seeds
When seeds and nuts are planted in the ground, the warmth and moisture in the soil around them breaks down their skins so that they can germinate and grow into plants. Likewise, when we soak our nuts and seeds, we break down the encasing on these great sources of energy and make the nutrients more available to us.
I know. You're already busy and this sounds like a lot of extra work.
But it's really not.
Most of the time spent soaking and dehydrating is hands-off time. You just put the seeds or nuts in a bowl, transfer them to the dehydrator (or oven) and then take them out when dry.
For dehydrating, I highly recommend the Excalibur Dehydrator. You can also find them on Amazon.
If you don't have a dehydrator, however, you can start dehydrating with your oven. During the winter months, you'll welcome the added warmth, but in the summer, you'll wish you had the dehydrator :-)!
So...here is how to do it:
How to Use Soaked & Dried Nuts aka "Crispy Nuts"
1. Eat them plain - yum!
2. Make Homemade Nut or Seed Butter
3. Make Nut or Seed Milk - Here's the Easiest Almond Milk Ever!
4. And here's a variation - yummy Chocolate / Carob Nuts.
As I've said before, try not to be "all-or-nothing" in your thinking about soaking, drying, and the raw food issues. My family loves the flavor of the dehydrated nuts, but we don't like hazelnuts (filberts) unless they are roasted. So we roast them after soaking them. They are still lighter and tastier than without soaking, but they've lost some of their nutrition. We also sometimes eat unsoaked nuts and seeds when we're served them, but we sure do notice right away what a difference there is.
The point here is to make steps towards wholeness and to do what you can at the pace that you can handle.
If you're interested in finding out more about an Excalibur Dehydrator (in my mind this is the one to buy if you are serious about dehydrating - and who wouldn't be :-)?),
Notes and Tips:
- Cashews have a somewhat toxic coating on them between the nut and the shell. According to most resources that I researched, this coating is removed in processing. (I did find one source saying nothing about it all being removed). Additionally, they are prone to mold and so are not the greatest choice for those sensitive to mold.So I recommend only eating them in moderation or not at all. They also get slimy when soaked longer than 6 hours so if you choose to soak to improve their digestibility, keep an eye on the clock :-).
- Temperature control is one way in which the dehydrator is a much better option than the oven. Typically the lowest temperature for an oven is high enough to destroy the enzymes in the nuts/seeds, therefore diminishing their healthful qualities. However, I still think the oven is the best place for someone new to soaking and drying to start.
- There is debate about what temperature to dehydrate at in order to preserve the enzymes in your food. For now I am comfortable with 125. I am not an ardent raw foodist, and after researching this I found that the temperature of the food in the dehydrator is significantly below the temperature of the air around it. Thus, if the setting of the dehydrator is 125, your food temperature is almost certainly in the raw food range--115 or below.
The How to of Soaking Nuts and Seeds (aka - How to Make Crispy Nuts)
1. Measure 4-cup amounts of whatever nuts or seeds that you want to soak, depending upon how much dehydrating space you have. With the 9-tray dehydrator, I can dry about 25 cups of nuts/seeds at a time.
2. Completely cover the nuts/seeds with purified water. Here is my post on Why You Need to Purify Your Water.
3. Add 2 tsp quality salt for each 4 cups of nuts/seeds. I recommended Real Salt. In Nourishing Traditions, Sally Fallon has different recommended amounts for each nut/seed. For simplicity's sake, I use the same amount of salt for each seed/ nut, and this has worked well. The salt enhances the soaking procedure and gives your nuts great flavor.
4. Soak for 7-12 hours. Soaking nuts and seeds overnight is perfect.
5. Spread out in a single layer on dehydrator trays or cookie sheets (for oven drying). You can actually pile up sunflower, pumpkin, or sesame seeds somewhat since they dry much faster than nuts.
6. Dry at a low temperature. Use the lowest temperature of your oven. In a dehydrator I opt for about 125 degrees.
7. Dry until the nuts/seeds are crispy.
8. Enjoy!
9. Store remaining nuts or seeds for the futures. Read here about How to Store Nuts and Seeds.
You'll find that your nuts and seeds are much tastier and lighter than before. You will never go back again!
Interested in other nutrition-boosting posts? Try these:
Have you ever tried soaking nuts and/or seeds?
Do you buy raw nuts from the US? Supposedly raw nuts in the US are heat-treated and not truly raw. Do you buy nuts from Europe to obtain truly raw nuts?
They have to come from Europe or without going through the regular procedures.
Looking forward to your posts.what are your credentials.
Hello there. Not sure what kind of credentials you are looking for but you can learn more about me here: https://wholenewmom.com/about-me/ Thanks for reading!
Thanks! Great website. You might be more specific on temperature though. Fahrenheit or Celsius? Since by far most of the world uses Celsius, I can assume you mean that but still make it clear and preferably convert for other users. It does seem kinda high though. I usually have them at about 50 °C
Also, can you give approximate time this takes you? Is it few hours or overnight?
Thank you,
Dan
Hi there. I think we're working on celsius for my site - I know we're working on metric so I assume that will include the temperature alternative.
Do you mean the drying time?
Once the nuts are dehydrated, how long can they be stored and how should the be stored?
This should help :). https://wholenewmom.com/whole-new-budget/how-to-store-nuts-and-seeds-2/
How long would soaked sunflower seeds take to dry if you placed them outside in the sun?
I have never done that. Sorry. Maybe look online.
How long do you let them dry in the oven?
It depends on the temperature.
Hello there,
Anyone have any ideas what I can put my seeds on in the dehydrator, they will fall through the holes.???
Do you have an Excalibur? If so, they do well on the holes unless they are sesame seeds. If you are drying sesame seeds you should use their Paraflexx sheets.
Thank you for your reply. I think I will pass on ordering the nuts at Amazon though, that site is getting sketchy on the quality of products they sell. I have been burned by carob nibs not being what they were being sold as. But I will keep looking. I have been wanting a dehydrator for decades now and this gives me another use if I were to buy one. So far the cost of the dehydrator doesn't match the use: we don't eat dry fruit or veggies and jerky is just not our thing either and I'm not big on dried flowers but herbs have my interest and now your crispy nuts sound wonderful.
I think you just have to be careful to buy from a good company on there. What brand of carob did you buy? Do you mean cacao? We do use our dehydrator a lot for things like these Green Bean Chips: https://wholenewmom.com/recipes/green-bean-chips/
Greetings. Did you use Planters or did you buy raw nuts and seeds? I know that might sound like a really dumb question but I really don't know where to buy raw nuts and seeds that you know are fresh and clean. Our local market has some bulk sunflower seeds but I think they are already roasted because they look and taste like Planters. We have no health food stores near us. We do have a nut store that sells roasted or blanched nuts but they tell us that they are not licensed to sell raw product? They were not at all helpful and we drove an hour to visit their store.
I buy raw nuts and seeds, but cashews are never truly raw. Amazon actually has a lot of good quality nuts that you can check out here. I am looking into other options but haven't decided on anything yet. https://amzn.to/2fW8CnB (that is an affiliate link). Hope that helps!
I am making aIlmond butter over 2 years without soaking @ dehydration as i was not familiar this process with and i didnt know the digestive benefits till recently. Next time i will definetly apply soaking @ dehydration process . The beter the quality the almonds the much beter the quality of the butter. i have tasted more than 100 qualities of almonds and now nobody can cheat on me . i know what i want . As i live in Greece and i think we produce one of the best qualities of almonds in the world, a quality called VOLOU ALMONDS ( the most exotic taste i have ever tried ) grown only in a certain area.i would like to ask the following :
Do the quality of almonds in taste are affected by stroring in the refrigerator 3 weeks before making almond butter?
My personal view is yes.
I have made a butter right after the buying of the nuts @ a different quantity after 3 weeks from the fridge. The difference was that the ones from the fridge were more dehydrated @ less fruity. The problem is that i cant do butter of 6 pounds of almonds at once because of storage conditions and i decided to do it in smal quantities and put them in fridge .
I wish you could test the almonds that I buy :). Thanks for sharing.
Can any nuts be used or must they be raw?
Do you have to use salt in the water soak? my household is a low sodium home and we leave salt out whenever possible
I don't believe that soaking a roasted nut serves much purpose. But I could be wrong. You could leave the salt out but it does make them very tasty. Soaking and roasting both address digestibility issues but roasting apparently creates free radicals that would not be desired. I hope that helps.
Hi
I'm not sure if I'm actually worried about a real scenario but......
The food safety danger zone is the temperature range between 40 °F (4.4 ºC) and 140 °F (60 ºC) in which bacteria can grow rapidly.
I want to soak walnuts and then dehydrate them at a low temperature so that I don't damage the fats but that temperature will inevitably be within the food safety danger zone
What is to stop the walnuts harbouring dangerous bacteria due to being kept at this temperature for so long? Or is there something about the dehydration process that prevents such a thing?
Hi there. I am not a food safety expert, but there are loads of books on dehydrating and many people dehydrate at the temperatures that I mentioned. If you are concerned then please dehydrate at a higher temperature. Hre is an article by a food preservation expert and she talks about "raw food dehydrating". I hope this helps. https://foodpreservation.about.com/od/Dehydrating/a/Raw-Food-Diets-And-Dehydrator-Cooking.htm
Ah but to dehydrate at a higher temperature would no longer be dehydration. It would be cooking. I must admit I have never heard of an instance where dehydration has caused a food safety concern.
Hi again. Well, I guess that depends on your definitions. I hope it works for you in either case. Thanks!
should we soak the nuts in the fridge, or at room temp? Covered, or uncovered?
Thanks!
Jake
I soak at room temp. I believe I answered about covering and non after your previous comment. Thanks!
When we soak nuts in saltwater, should we leave the bowl covered or uncovered?
Thanks!!!
Jake
I never cover mine. I guess if you have a problem with bugs and such I would cover it.
After soaking and dehydrating the nuts how do you store them and for how long? Thank you for sharing all these great recipes.
Wow - I should have had a link to this post in there. Sorry about that and hope this helps: https://wholenewmom.com/whole-new-budget/how-to-store-nuts-and-seeds-2/
Can I just soak enough for the next day overnight and not bother with dehydrate or roasting?
Yes, if you like. I don't like my nuts and seeds not dried or roasted, but you can do that.
So it's basically a texture/preference thing and also for longer (much) storage purposes.
I will do a dehydrated batch but I think the day to day will often just be
soaked seeds and nuts with fruit for breakfast.
Thanks
Yes, that's the case. You are welcome!
I understand why to soak them - but can't find any info about why the need to dehydrate after? I don't bother with this phase. It just add complexity as far as I can see. I Just let them air dry for a few hours spread out on a clean tea towel and store them in an air tight container in the fridge. they keep a week like this.
I don't think the nuts would dry completely by doing only this....and they would mold. I don't really like the nuts when they aren't dried but of course that's just personal taste :). If you want them for butters or long term snacking of course drying is the way to go.
Is the temp in Fahrenheit or Centigrade?
Farenheit. 🙂
Oh, good you said that! I was reading Celsius, too.
hi, i must dehydrate them, cant i just eat them after they were soaked?
You can, but in my opinion they don't taste good wet like that.
Well hello there and a big fat thanks for your time & information 🙂
I do not have a dehydrator yet, one day I will be contacting you to get that Excalibar however right now, don't ask me why because I don't know that answer Ha ha ha but I have a Mac daddy Oven evidently because it goes to a very low temperature of 100*
So I soaked the Brazil nuts overnight then put them in the oven on 125* at around 10am today.... I had to leave the house at that time and so I left the oven door a little open... ?question? Am I supposed to close Oven door while the nuts are in there dehydrating or leave the door open a bit?? Is it safe for me to leave Oven on when I am not home or when I sleep through the night..... I read to dehydrate them for 18hrs that would end up being 5am, I have to be up at 5:30 to get ready to go so good timing I suppose;) but just wondering if people just leave the Oven on while they are not home or sleeping? 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Hi there. I could not recommend leaving an oven on while sleeping or away from home. I am sure people do it but I don't think it's recommended for safety reasons. Sorry :).
How do I dehydrate sunflower seeds and not have them fall through the mesh of the excaliber tray? Ive been using parchment paper on top of the mesh but wondered what other options there were. Thanks.
They have paraflexx sheets which go on top. I can get you a good deal on them if you would like - :).
Yes I'd be interested in finding out how much they are. Then I'd have to see if I can fit it in the budget.
Here's the link so tell me what you think. You can email me direct at wholenewmom at gmail and we can figure something out! https://wholenewmom.com/store/excalibur-dehydrator-savings/
Good Day Adrienne,
I don't have a dehydrator yet. I'm soaking some raw sunflower seeds now.
My toaster oven setting is 200. How long do would i need to toast them? When I dry coconut shreds I do it for 4 hours.
Thank you for all your amazing recipes and posts!
Hi there. I'm sorry but I haven't tested it that way - sunflower seeds dry out very quickly so I would check maybe every 20 min or so? Thanks for the kind words.