The Best Oven Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds are a great source of healthy fats, fibre, protein and a good source of iron. It has quickly become a favourite seasonal snack in our household. In this article I’ll describe how we harvest, clean, and cook our pumpkin seeds for a healthy, savoury snack.

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It wasn’t that long ago that pumpkin seeds were not a part of our diet. Even though both my wife and I remember our parents harvesting and roasting pumpkin seeds when we were kids. It wasn’t until we started to grow our own pumpkins, that we started to eat them again.

Now, pumpkin seeds are a favourite snack of ours and we keep growing more pumpkins every year, mostly for the seeds.

When you think of pumpkins, the mind usually goes to the month of October, and Halloween. But pumpkins and their seeds can be harvested, stored and eaten for a lot longer duration that just October. Let me answer a couple of common questions that will give you more information.

When Does Pumpkin Season Start?

The answer to this is dependent on what growing zone you live in and if you start your seeds indoors. We live in Zone 5B with a last frost date of May 7th. We started pumpkin seeds indoors about 1 week before planting them outside in the middle of May. Our first pumpkin was ready to be harvested on August 20th and we harvested a second round of pumpkins at the beginning of October.

By looking up your last frost date and using the example above you can figure out how early you would be able to harvest pumpkins in your area. Simply add or subtract the difference in last frost dates with the date of our first pumpkin harvest.

Most conventional large farming operations will have pumpkins available from the middle of September through the end of October.

How Long Can Pumpkins Be Stored?

Pumpkins are part of the winter squash family. This means that they grow in the hot summer and can be harvested and stored to be consumed in the winter. For proper storage all winter squash, including pumpkins, they need to be cured. I wrote an article describing how to cure winter squash, if you’d like more information on that.

A cured pumpkin will last in a cool dry place for 2-3 months. So if you harvested and cured a pumpkin in October, it could last you until January. This is exactly what we do, so we can eat pumpkins seeds from August through January.

How Do You Harvest Pumpkin Seeds?

This is the easy part that most people would be familiar with. You can do it while you are carving a pumpkin for Halloween (or just pretend that you are). Simply cut around the stem of the pumpkin at the top. Making a hole large enough to stick your hand into and pull out the pumpkins seeds.

This can be a little messy or feel a little gross to some people. I like to use a spoon to scrap down the sides and bottom inside the pumpkin to loosen the seeds and remove the seeds by hand. Place the pumpkin seeds into a bowl and move onto cleaning.

How Many Seeds Do You Get From One Pumpkin?

From a 10 pound pumpkin we got just under 200g (186g to be exact). The amount will vary slightly by the pumpkin variety you are harvesting the seeds from as well as from pumpkin to pumpkin.

100g of pumpkin seeds equals 1 cup. So for a 10 pound pumpkin you will get approximately 2 cups of seeds.

How Do You Clean Pumpkin Seeds To Be Eaten?

The easiest way to clean pumpkin seeds is to use a Fine Mesh Strainer and run the pumpkin seeds under cold water to remove them from fibrous strands (also known as pumpkin brains).

Keep moving the seeds around in the strainer with your hand and pick out pieces of the orange strands with your hands. This should only take a couple of minutes.

Once the seeds are clean put them onto a paper towel or clean dish cloth. Pat them dry with another towel. They don’t need to be completely dry, they will still feel kind of slippery.

How Do You Cook Pumpkin Seeds?

Our favourite way to cook pumpkin seeds is to roast them in the oven. You don’t need a convection oven to roast pumpkin seeds but if you have one it’ll make them more crispy.

For a more natural flavour simply mix your pumpkin seeds with a some olive oil and a little salt. Spread them out into an even layer on a baking sheet, we like to use silicon baking mats as well. Cook at 350°F for 15 minutes. Adjust time for preference on crispiness. We like to cook ours for 18 minutes so they are extra crispy.

Follow our favourite spiced version below.

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