Spiced nuts with savory and spicy cumin and sweet sugar, make for a delicious oven toasted party snack ready to munch in just 15 minutes. Addicting, delicious, and a fun way to pass the time while dinner is cooking.
Spiced Nuts
I think when I generally want to put together appetizers or snack for a party, I automatically think of chips and salsa, or fiesta party dip or even artichoke spinach dip.
I rarely think of nuts, but omygosh, if this is you too, you must try this savory, salty, slightly sweet and super spicy nuts. These oven roasted, oven toasted, seasoned nuts with walnuts, cashews, peanuts, and almonds definitely hit the snack button.
Now these nuts have a little bit of a sweet side, but they are more on the spicy side. If you don’t like at least mild salsa, this is probably not your recipe.
But if you love a handful of deez nuts (kidding, kidding), this is one of those cant put down, easy to make large recipe batches that are so good for parties, food gifts, and just plain old snackage.
What Kind of Nuts to use for Spiced Party Mix?
I think when it comes to making a snack, you really could use any type of nut. I personally love the following nuts to season.
You can get them salty or without seasoning, it wont overly change the recipe. If you happen to salt everything up, you may want to cut back on the salt that is IN the recipe (there is a such thing as too much salt).
You can also get a bag of mixed nuts which often have other nuts like Brazil nuts or Hazelnuts inside.
Note: Mixed bags of nuts often have granola, raisins or chocolate in them, just be careful to note that.
- cashews – I love the sweet crunch of cashews
- almonds or halves (whole) – almonds are delicious whole or halved. You could even get slivers
- dry roasted or honey roasted peanuts (mine were lightly salted) – if you want to bring some sweet into the peanuts, get honey roasted
- walnuts (halves and pieces) – just don’t get the broken down Walnuts
Spicy Nut Seasoning Mixture
Spicy seasoning mixture is super easy to put together. You can tone down the spice by alternating seasonings, but I love the mix of cumin, cayenne and pepper for a great spicy party mix that you can wash down with adult beverages (like beer!)
This particular recipe also has a bit of sweet to it so its not entirely made of spiced up nuts, but cayenne and cumin are pretty strong so in general its just a slight tone down.
- white sugar
- butter
- water
- salt
- black pepper
- cumin
- cayenne
Don’t let your Nuts Stick
Honestly writing this whole article is seriously cracking me up. I am such a child. But your nuts will stick to the pan if you do not use parchment paper or a prepared baking pan with immediate removal out of the oven to parchment paper.
Anything with seasoning and sugar run the risk of sticking to a pan and parchment is the only thing that doesn’t.
I have tried foil and baking spray and parchment and prefer parchment paper. It literally never lets me down and tin foil can be fickle, but if you only have foil, just spray it down well.
Appetizer Recipes for Parties
Looking for more appetizer recipes that everyone can munch on? Try
- Pizza Pull Apart Bread
- Mexican Crack Corn Dip
- Bacon Wrapped Baby Potatoes
- Sweet Fruit Salsa with Homemade Cinnamon Chips
- Mini Pigs in a Blanket
How to Store Mixed Nuts
In a jar…of course.
Spiced Nuts Recipe for Oven Toasted Party Snack
Ingredients
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with foil and spray with cooking spray OR use parchment paper (I prefer parchment!)
- Add nuts to a large mixing bowl and mix well, or you can buy premixed nuts. Make sure there is no chocolate with your mixed nuts.
- Add sugar, water and butter in a saucepan and mix well. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once mixture begins to boil, reduce heat to low and continue to stir and heat for one minute. Mixture will bubble and double in size. Remove from heat and stir in spices.
- Pour mixture over nuts in bowl and mix well to evenly coat.
- Pour spicy nuts onto prepared baking sheet and spread evenly in one single layer.
- Bake for 8 minutes, and flip nuts with a spatula, breaking a part any sticking. Return to oven for an additional 5 minutes.
- Remove nuts from oven and immediately place on parchment paper to cool.
- Once cool break apart any remaining large pieces of nuts and serve.
- Store in an airtight container.
Notes
Other Spiced Nut Flavors
There are plenty of ways to spice up your party nuts, but here are a few extra ideas for you to test out.- Chipotle Seasoning
- Smoked Paprika
- Cajun Spices
- Cinnamon and Nutmeg - bring a little bit of the fall flavors
- Old Bay Seasonings
- Chili Seasoning
- Cinnamon
- Nutmeg
- Allspice
- Pumpkin Spice
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Comments & Reviews
Sheila says
I followed the directions and mine the sugar crystallized. Why would that happen?
Trisha Haas says
Oh no! Sugar crystalizes for a variety of reasons from the sugar type to hard water to too high of heat. Its really hard to tell from here exactly what went wrong with your recipe, but you can usually fix crystallized sugar by adding some additional water, heat back up and dissolving the crystals. Sugar and chocolate can be two of the hardest things to work with when it comes to recipes because they can be so sensitive quite quickly.