Delectable. I took some soaked and dehydrated pumpkin seeds and threw them in a food processor with a bit of maple syrup (I’ve also tried honey with excellent results) salt, coconut oil and cinnamon. It’s a delicious treat! Especially when served with apple slices. I know it’s not super pretty, but the taste more than makes up for it.
If you have soaked and dehydrated pumpkin seeds on hand, this is very easy to throw together. Otherwise, you can toast raw pumpkin seeds in a pan over medium heat on the stove until they start to brown, which also helps reduce enzyme inhibitors.
I’ve used a fair amount of cinnamon in this recipe because pumpkin seeds have a robust flavor and can handle it. I personally think that one tablespoon of maple syrup makes it sweet enough, but doesn’t give as good “maple flavor” as I want, hence the two tablespoons. But play around with the ratios, if you want. This will get pretty hard in the refrigerator because of the coconut oil, so let it soften at room temperature for a while before you serve it.
Whatever you do, make sure you put it out of reach of little people! After Elena and I had enjoyed amble servings of this treat, I took a shower. When I came out, she had already taken a spoon and polished the rest of it off! Oops. But yes, it’s that good. You will want to eat it off a spoon.
- 3/4 cup of Pumpkin Seeds (dehydrated or toasted, see note above)
1/4 cup of coconut oil (or grass fed butter)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup (I prefer grade B) or honey
1/4 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 1/2 -2 teaspoons cinnamon
Put all of the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth and well mixed. Serve right away or place in the refrigerator (just make sure you soften it before serving).
*To Make this GAPS friendly use honey.
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Kimi,
Thanks so much for this great recipe! I have a novice question for you, though. Should I purchase organic pumpkin seeds, or can the conventionally grown ones suffice? This is actually a big thing on my personal radar right now. My family (of 6 with 1 on the way!) consumes a LOT of nuts and seeds, so I want to make sure we’re getting the maximum amount of nutrition from those foods without the chemicals. I’ve heard/read a few unnerving things about all “raw” almonds being pasteurized (read: chemically treated). I’m just curious if you know of any other links for more information on the pros and cons of eating organically grown nuts and seeds.
Thank you!
Jenn
Almonds can be simply pasteurized via heat, so it won’t necessarily have chemicals on it, just won’t have many enzymes left. 🙂 I haven’t heard of any other nuts or seeds being subject to this process though. I haven’t heard anything specific about the amount of pesticides on nonorganic nuts or seeds, but I imagine that pumpkin seeds would be pretty safe since they are inside the pumpkin. Organic of course is always better, but non organic may not be that bad.
Anyone else want to weigh in on this issue?
This sounds out of this world. Saving to make asap! 🙂
So I have a novice question as well… are pepitas “raw pumpkin seeds”? Because I just received a BUNCH of those last week, and was wondering what on earth to do with them, now that I’ve soaked and dehydrated them… (cos they aren’t really flying off the shelves at our house!)
I’m going to give it a try this afternoon anyway, because I have plenty to “experiment” with! 🙂 It sounds very tasty!
Yes they are! I don’t know if I like to eat them all by themselves either (though we do like them mixed with raisins). But I really like this recipe!
I have a question about nut butters that I’ve been wondering and since there was a post on seed butter figured that this would be as good a time as any to ask. I love almond butter. The kind I buy at my local co-op is gooey, creamy, spreadable, delicious and expensive. I’ve tried many times to make it at home and it comes out okay. But it’s never creamy, it’s always chunky and hard. I don’t mind the chunks so much, but I’d like it to be more spreadable. I’ve used raw almonds, I’ve used roasted almonds, I’ve mixed it with coconut oil and I’ve just used nuts. Any idea on how to make homemade creamy almond butter?
I am afraid that I have the same problem and I think it’s caused by a lack of proper equipment. I think you can buy nut grinder attachments to many different machines, and I also have heard that vitamixers and blendtecs make excellent creamy nut butters. But making it in a food processor just doesn’t make as creamy of a product. This recipe was helped a bit by using both coconut oil and maple syrup (which thinned it down a little).
I have a Vitamix and it doesn’t make almond butter like you’d get commercially. I add a liquid oil to increase creaminess. It is one of the few times I use a nut oil, of course expeller-pressed and organic. I hesitate using coconut oil because of the hardness it gets in the fridge or cool room temp. I actually prefer a food processor for nut and seed butters, over the Vitamix. Better circulation because of the wider container. Just my opinion. 😉
If your food processor (high speed for 5-8 min) does not make creamy nut butter than your almonds are old and stale. Try finding a nut distributor who can get you better quality almonds. The best almonds I’ve found so far make (very creamy-no additive) nut butter in about 3-4 min!
Stop the presses! This sounds amazing. But,alas, no dehydrator. Any idea on how long it would take to roast on low?
If you were soaking them and then drying in the oven at a low temperature (150-170), it would probably take all day. If you were toasting them in a pan it would take about ten minutes. If you were roasting them in the oven at a higher temperature say 375 degrees, it takes about five minutes.
Kimi, I am a chiropractor nutritionst and I am putting together a cookbook for parents with autistic and ADD kids. This cookbook is gluten dairy, soy and sugar free. I have found several recipes on your site that I would love to use. I need permission from you to include them in my cookbook called: Inside the Lunch Box. Please let me know if it is ok. You will receive credit for each of your recipes. This is not a cookbook of original recipes, just one I can give to parents when they are told their children have to be off gluten, etc and they come back with, “But what am I going to feed him?”.
I will email you!
Kimi, I think it is soooo cute that Elena finished off the seed butter while you were in the shower! This looks like a great recipe. I’ve never added yummy maple syrup or coconut oil to pumkin seed butter. I’m sure that makes it really tasty, and a big improvement over how I’ve usually made it.
This sounds absolutely fantastic! I adore pumpkin seeds and am always looking for new ways to use them. I never thought of making them into pumpkin seed butter before, what a fabulous idea =)
I just came across your site and I love it! Especially the frugal posts, since I just graduated from college.
This recipe looks really good. I have been thinking about making my own almond butter with maybe a cinnamon coffee flavor…or maybe a Kahlua flavor.
this my first time to hear about this I’ll have to try it
Hi Kimi,
I’m wondering how long would this butter last (using toasted pumpkin seeds and kept refrigerated)?
Thank you!
I had been waiting to try this. Finally, when my DD who is 15 mos. started her nap, I rushed to the kitchen and threw my frozen-defrosted raw pumpkin seeds on the stove top to brown! In 15 mins this was ready this was ready in the food processor! I was super curious to sample this as I am not a fan of pumpkin seeds but I know that they offer good nutrition and being a vegetarian, I know I need this. Mine doesn’t look as smooth as yours but I still like the taste of it! So easy, so healthy and so quick to make. I am wondering what a touch of cardamom powder would add to this? I’ll prob. try that next time. Meanwhile, thanks another QUICK nutrient dense snack idea 🙂
This looks delicious! My kind of snack!
MMm, cardamom sounds good, speed!
I made this, and it’s a keeper. Ugly, yes, but tasty. I added walnuts (just on a whim). I also added water, as I just couldn’t get it the right consistency (the blades kept missing the blob of half-pulverized nuts as it was all too thick to move around well) and it has stayed mixed in and actually worked pretty well just to get things going in there again. I started in the vitamix, figuring it was supreme in all things, but moved it all over to the food processor where it did much better.
I just made this and my husband and I are gobbling it up! Who would have thought maple syrup would compliment pumpkin seeds so beautifully?!
Just gave this a whirl this morning–yummy, but I couldn’t get it to look as creamy a consistency as you show. Maybe I need to let the food processor run longer but it seemed like it couldn’t ‘catch’ the ball of the mixture that was circling around the bowl anymore, so I stopped. Pretty grainy, but very tasty. I’ll try again to get a creamier texture so the picky 4.5 yr old will try it 😉
Hello!
This recipe reminded me of the ground pepitas our neighbor used to make. When I was a teen we rented a ranch out in a village in Oaxaca, Mex, for a year or so. The ranch keeper and his wife lived next door and lived the very traditional indian lifestyle, including cooking. This is how she would make her pepita paste:
She would use soaked, dried pumpkin seeds that she she prepared after the harvest, (I never saw her make them, so I can’t comment on that). They had the hull on them. Then she would roast them in a bit, and put them on her grinding stone, hull and all. (These pumpkin seeds have a thinner hull and are fatter than the ones you see sold as a snack in the grocery stores) This is the stone she used to grind the masa for tortillas, (she would take her soaked and cooked corn to a miller, who ground them up for her into masa, and she used the stone to further grind the masa – finely grinding up enough for one tortilla, then pat it between her hands into the familiar round tortilla we all know.).
She would end up with a yummy, very spreadable paste, which she would spread on freshly made tortillas. Oh, so yummy!
My modern variation:
I followed your soaking method for raw pumpkin seeds, using the sea salt and optional 1 tsp of cayenne pepper. I dehydrated them, (oh so yummy, I wish I had stumbled upon your site long ago.). I’ve been sitting on pins waiting for them to be done so I could make the paste remember. Of course, I couldn’t find any raw seeds with the hull, but it doesn’t matter. I threw in three small handful of seeds into my motar and pestal, (it happens to be made of granite), and started grinding. Surprisingly the pumpkin seeds ground into flour in no time flat with little effort! In less then a minute.
I continued the grinding. The flour started to clump up, and I ground some more. Finally it started sticking to the pestal and mortar, I would scrape it down with the mortar and gave it an extra gind for another minute or so for good measure. In total I ground it for between 5 and 10 minutes. Might as well sit down to do this. With a silicone spatula I scraped out the ground seeds into a small bowl. I could still see bits of unground pumpkin seed bits. It wasn’t the consistancy I recall, but then I didn’t have a grinding stone. It stuck together in one clump, and I could spread it on my toasted whole grains bread. YUMMY!
If you wanted it creamier, as for a dip, I would guess it would be at this stage one would add the oil, butter, or whatever else you wanted to add to turn it into more spreadable dip.
My guess is that further grinding may make it pastier. When you pinch up a bit of the pumpkin seed flour between your fingers, it doesn’t feel oily. But, as you grind it longer, and pinch it, it will clump into a solid mass that holds its shape, and when rubbed between your fingers you can feel how oily it is becoming. Probably the gentle heat from the friction of grinding helps release the oils to turn it into a paste. I’ll experiment in the future with heating the paste for a few seconds in the microwave and continue grinding to see of it makes a difference in producing a softer, more spreadable paste.
All I know is that I’m so happy, I can hardly wait to give some of that to my grandson, (17 months), when I babysit him next. And yes, he can handle the cayenne pepper. I found that out when he insisted on having some of Grandpa’s food, (quinoa/black bean spicy mixture with cumin and cayenne pepper added after removing his portion). He refused to finish his own portion. To me, I can’t taste the hotness of the pepper in the pumpkin seed paste, but I can taste a hint of flavor from the cayenne pepper.
Love your website!
Evelina : )
I made this today in my vitamix blender. I used Almond oil instead of coconut oil. It turned out so good… I think I am going to eat the whole thing today. LOL.
Thank you so much. I plan to make this for my niece.
I own a Vitamix blender and it makes perfect gooey, creamy, speadable nut butter everytime I use it. If you own a Vitamix and haven’t been able to produce such consistency for your nut butters, you’re probably doing it wrong. There is a video on the Vitamix website and I’ve been able to produce nut butters of a commercial consistency without adding any oils. I’ve tried almonds, cashews, pumpkin…all with the same perfect results!
We LOVE this recipe. I don’t even bother making a single batch. My dh and little ones can eat it by the spoonful, so I leap straight to at least a double batch. Makes a great sandwich too! I use the ratios exactly as Kimi has them, and it’s perfect! My family isn’t crazy about straight pumpkin seeds or butter, but this! Oh my! Great way to get those wonderful enzymes and nutrients from pumpkin seeds! Thanks!
I just came across this recipe and made it tonight. I’m on a really strict diet since my newborn has food intolerance. The mixture turned into paste as opposed to butter. Did I blend it for too long or does it not have enough liquid in there? It tastes fantastic, but I can’t spread it. I’m just eating it by the spoonfuls. Any advice?
Thanks for the recipe! It’s so good to be able to eat any kind of butter these days.
i made this, its delicious!!
Is this made using the seeds with the hulls or do the hulls need to be removed? Will it work with seeds from other squashes?
Hey Liz,
I used the green colored pumpkin seeds (pepitas) you can find at the store. They are hulled. Hope that helps!