The Best Crispy Spiced Nuts
This Spiced Nuts Recipe with cinnamon and chili is a delicious fall or holiday snack, appetizer or they make a great gift. The best part of this recipe is the crispy coating made with egg white. It is so much better than most recipes out there! The texture is amazing!
I originally shared this recipe for spiced nuts on October 22, 2015. I have updated the text and some of the photographs to share it with you today.
Table of contents
Why We Love This Crispy Spiced Nuts Recipe
This Spicy Nuts Recipe is like a combination of sweet and hot candied nuts and sugared nuts. They have the crispy coating of sugared nuts, but they have sweet and hot spices too making them an awesome party snack!
Package them up to give as a gift, nibble on them for a great snack or you can add them to a salad like my Holiday Kale Salad with Roasted Delicata Squash for crunch and sweet and spicy flavor. Just beware they are addictively good!
What Are Spiced Nuts?
- Spiced Nuts is a catchall phrase for nuts that have been seasoned and roasted. They vary from unsweetened to coating in a crisp sugary coating.
- Unsweetened spiced nuts have oil on them to coat the nuts so the herbs and spices and salt can stick to the nuts as they roast.
- Typically Spiced nuts are sweet and have warm spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg.
- There are also candied nuts that have sweet and shiny coating like my Chili Chocolate Spiced Pecans.
- And then there are Sugared Nuts that have a crispy coating made with egg whites.
Ingredients for Spiced Nuts With Egg White
- Egg White – One large egg white combines with the sugar to create a thin, crispy and sweet coating on the nuts.
- Pecans – Pecans are a favorite for their meaty texture, but any nut or nut mixture will work. Walnuts, macadamia nuts or almonds are awesome choices.
- Maple Sugar – Granulated maple sugar adds a wonderful maple syrup flavor, but coconut sugar or white sugar can also be used.
- Coarse Kosher Salt – Adds the perfect flavor counterpoint to the sugar and the coarse texture adds a pleasant crunch.
- Cinnamon and Allspice– Ground cinnamon and allspice add a sweet warmth to the nuts.
- Chipotle Chili Powder or Cayenne – Just 1/2 teaspoon of Chipotle chili powder or cayenne adds just the right amount of heat to the sweet and salty flavor profile, but feel free to add more or less to suit your taste.
How To Make This Recipe
Before you Begin
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- You’ll need to line your rimmed baking sheet with a silpat or silicone baking mat. If you don’t have one, generously grease your sheet pan.
Using Egg Whites in Spiced Nuts
The very special part of this recipe is the crispy coating which is created from beaten egg whites. I know it sounds really strange, but they work with the sugar to create a thin, hard and crispy sugary coating around the nut and in every nook and cranny.
Tips For Beating Egg Whites
- Use a clean large bowl and a clean whisk or egg beaters. Any trace of yolk or fat will prevent the whites from whipping.
- Room temperature egg whites whip better and faster than cold egg whites. To quickly warm up your whites you can set the unbroken egg into a mug of warm tap water for a couple minutes. {While the oven preheats and you’re gathering your ingredients, try it!}
- You only need to whip them until they are foamy. It is not necessary to beat them to soft peaks.
Add Pecans To Whites
Next take your raw nuts (I used Pecans, but any kind of nut or mix of nuts will work in this recipe) and stir them with the whites.
Allow the whites to soak into all the nooks and crannies, because they will make the spices and sugar stick to it, and that’s what will make the delicious sugar and spiced coating!
Add Sugar and Spices
Next you’ll sprinkle on the sugar and spices. Then stir it to coat the nuts in the spices and sugar. It will cling to the egg whites. Here is the combo I used:
- granulated maple sugar, coconut sugar or white sugar
- coarse kosher salt
- ground cinnamon
- ground chipotle chili or cayenne (or to taste)
- ground allspice
Roast
Spread the coated nuts out onto the silpat or prepared baking sheet and use a spatula to separate them into a single layer. You want the hot air in the oven to circulate all around them to dry them out.
Roast them for 7 to 8 minutes. Note that smaller or larger nuts will need timing adjustment, so to know if yours are ready to be stirred, take a look at them. They should look dry at this point.
Stir them well and then return them to the oven to roast for 3 to 6 minutes longer. In addition to the spices, you will be able to smell the toasted nuts too. They will darken slightly, but don’t let them darken too much as the coating makes it hard to tell just how toasted they are.
Let them cool completely on the baking sheet.
FAQs
Once they are completely cool, you can transfer them to jars or a resealable airtight container. Keep them at room temperature for a week. Freeze them for 1 month.
If you try to seal them into a mason jar before they are completely cool, they will become sticky and loose their crispy texture. Occasionally, when the air has a lot of moisture, this spiced nuts recipe will become sticky. This is due to the sugars in the coating pulling the moisture into them. Typically in cold winter weather, this isn’t a problem.
Spice Nut Variations
I love the sweet and spicy blend that I have included in this recipe today, but you can also come up with your own variation of spices.
- If you cannot find maple sugar, which is what I recommend you can use white sugar or coconut sugar.
- Also, if you’re not a fan of hot and spicy food then you can most certainly skip the chili.
- You can use 1 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, chipotle and allspice.
Serving Suggestions
- Spiced Nuts make a great addition to a cheese board or grazing board for holiday parties.
- For vegetarian appetizers serve Roasted Red Pepper Hummus or Vegan Paté with fresh veggies and crackers.
- You can serve them with a cheese ball, fruits and crackers.
- If you make these nuts to top a salad, pair it with my amazing Maple Sherry Vinaigrette. It is such a great combo! Try it with apples, cheddar cheese chunks and roasted squash!
- They are a classic compliment to beets. My husband loves salads with beets, goat cheese and spiced nuts. Citrus can be added too!
- This beet recipe with spiced nuts is so fantastically delicious and super duper easy!
More Related Recipes You May Like:
- For more holiday appetizers and snacks, make sure to browse the appetizer section of my website.
- These Roasted Grape and Goat Cheese Crostini with honey and walnuts are the thing of legend.
- For a fast and tasty option these 15 Minute Chicken Salad Bites are a hit! They have cranberries and nuts in them and don’t take a lot of time!
- This is another holiday gift from the kitchen idea: Salted Bourbon Caramel Sauce
- These pecan and sweet potato cakes are adorable and make a great holiday gift for the GF foodie in your life: Gluten-Free Sweet Potato Praline Mini Bundt
At Healthy Seasonal Recipes, we specialize in cooking with fresh veggies and creating weeknight meals. Sign up HERE to get more produce-forward dinner ideas for FREE! If you make this recipe, please come back and leave a star rating and review. I would love to hear what you thought! Happy Cooking! ~Katie
PrintThe BEST Crispy Spiced Nuts Recipe
- Total Time: 20 minutes
- Yield: 2 1/2 cups 1x
Description
These spiced nuts with cinnamon and chili are a great fall or holiday snack, appetizer or gift. The maple and spice coating is made with egg whites which gives them the best crispy texture!
Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- 2 cup pecans or other nuts
- 4 teaspoons granulated maple sugar, coconut sugar or white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle chili or cayenne (or to taste)
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Instructions
- Preheat Oven and Prep Pan: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silpat baking mat or coat generously with cooking spray.
- Make Egg white and Spice Coating: Beat egg white in a medium bowl until foamy. Add nuts and stir to coat. Add sugar, cinnamon, salt, chili and allspice and toss to coat. Spread out on the prepared baking sheet and transfer to the oven.
- Roasting Instructions: Roast, until the mixture starts to look dry, 7 to 8 minutes. Stir and continue roasting until the nuts are browned and fragrant, 3 to 6 minutes longer. Cool completely and store in a jar at room temperature up to 1 week.
Notes
Granulated maple sugar is made from maple syrup that has been boiled to a hot temperature and then stirred continuously as it is cooled. Once it is cooled, the mixture turns to granulated sugar that tastes like the essence of maple. You can purchase it online or find it in health food stores near the other natural sweeteners.
You can use any type of nut to make this recipe but the cooking times will vary depending on the size of the nuts. In step 3, make sure they look dry before stirring them. Then roast them until you can smell the toasted nuts but before they darken too much. This will only take 3 or so minutes for nuts the same size of pecans, and less for smaller nuts, more for larger.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Category: snack
- Method: oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 168
- Sugar: 2 g
- Fat: 16 g
- Saturated Fat: 2 g
- Carbohydrates: 5 g
- Fiber: 2 g
- Protein: 4 g
These roasted up well, but were overly sweet and not quite spicy enough to balance out the sweet. I used only 3 tsps of coconut sugar as it already seemed like a lot (recipe calls for 4 tsps). I wish I would’ve upped the amount of chipotle seasoning and salt. I did actually add more salt afterwards which did help, and roasted them for another couple of minutes in my air fryer to hopefully get salt to stick.
I like the base recipe but with tweaks on the seasonings.
Of the mixed nuts I used it seems the almonds are best.
So you used one tablespoon (3 teaspoons equals 1 tablespoon) or did you use 3 tablespoons? Just checking because 1 tablespoon of sugar for 2 cups of nuts is about a third to a quarter of the amount of sugar in most top-ranking spiced nut recipes. One tablespoon of sugar has about 50 calories and about as many grams of sugar as a bowl of cereal. That’s spread out over the whole batch. So I am thinking that perhaps it is a matter of personal taste.
There is no mention of the oven temperature
I don’t know how that got deleted or when, but just pasted it back in just now. It’s 350! Sorry about that Donna and thanks for letting me know.
To appease my Keto husband I used monk fruit for the sweetener. I would not recommend this substitute because I found it blah on the sweet factor. I will up the spice level next time. The recommended amounts were milder than I expected.
I always try and leave comments on recipes I use. Only thing I changed was I used maple syrup for sweetner. I could have gone full amount but I thought it would be too sweet. Next time I will. Did 6 minutes stirred and another 4 minutes. I was heavy on the “spicy” spice! Love putting these on salads. Blue cheese dates and beets. Heaven. Thanks for the recipe.
Thank you for commenting and rating Jodie. I am glad to know that using maple syrup worked. I have never tried that with this recipe so I am glad to know. Thanks again and have a great Thanksgiving!
These were so perfect on our holiday charcuterie tray!
Yay! I am so happy you liked them! Thanks for coming back to let me know and Happy New Year!
These are perfect for snacking or for gifting! We are making them by the panful!
I love how quick and easy you can make this!! It was a huge hit at my house!
Elsa here from Mpumalanga, South Africa. Great recipe, is there something else I can use instead of eggs, have someone that is allergic, do you think oil will also work
These are the most delicious! I am making more this weekend!
Super easy and delicious!
Yay! These are the best, aren’t they! I am so glad you found the recipe and that you came back to review. It is much appreciated.
Loving how simple these are to whip up! Great tip on using the egg white!
These nuts are irresistible! They are great for snacking and I also added them to my salad for lunch, yummy!
It looks totally addictive!! Can’t wait to give it a try!