Cooking With Nuts: How to Toast, Store, and Use Nuts in Sweet and Savory Dishes
Nuts can do much more in the kitchen than add a little crunch. Toast them and their flavor becomes deeper and more aromatic. Chop them into salads and roasted vegetables, grind them into sauces, turn them into nut butter or flour, or use them in everything from cookies and quick breads to savory main dishes.
For cooking purposes, this guide focuses on the ingredients we commonly treat as culinary nuts: walnuts, almonds, pecans, pistachios, cashews, hazelnuts and macadamia nuts. Their botanical classifications are not all identical, but in the kitchen they are used in many of the same ways.
How to Choose and Store Nuts
Fresh nuts should smell pleasantly nutty, not sharp, stale, paint-like or bitter. Because nuts contain natural oils, heat, light and oxygen gradually affect their flavor. If you use nuts quickly, a cool pantry can work for short-term storage. For longer storage, keep them well sealed in the refrigerator or freezer.
The freezer is especially useful when you buy larger bags. Nuts can be used directly from frozen in many recipes, or allowed to come to room temperature before chopping or serving.
Toasting can perk up nuts that have simply lost some aroma, but it cannot fix rancidity. If a nut smells or tastes distinctly rancid, discard it.
Raw vs. Toasted Nuts
Raw nuts have a milder flavor and can be exactly what you want when another ingredient should remain the focus. Toasting develops a deeper aroma and a crisper texture, which is particularly useful when the nuts will be noticeable in the finished dish.
For the oven, spread the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast at moderate heat, checking and stirring them as they cook. On the stovetop, use a dry skillet over medium or medium-low heat and stir or toss frequently. The exact time varies with the nut, its size and whether it is whole, sliced or chopped, so use aroma and color as your best guides. Remove the nuts once they smell fragrant and have taken on a little color; they can continue cooking from residual heat after leaving the pan.
When possible, toast whole nuts before chopping them. Small irregular pieces can brown at different rates. Sliced and slivered almonds are easier to toast evenly because their pieces are relatively uniform, but they still need close attention.
Cooking With Walnuts
Walnuts have a rich, slightly earthy flavor with a mild tannic bitterness that works especially well with fruit, cheese, chocolate, leafy greens and sweeter ingredients. Toasting brings out more of their aroma, while leaving them raw gives a softer texture and milder flavor.
Walnuts work well in baked goods, oatmeal, salads, sauces and vegetable dishes. They can also be candied when you want sweetness and crunch. My Stovetop Brown Sugar Candied Nuts are one example, and those candied walnuts can be used in Roasted Butternut Squash with Apples, Cranberries and Candied Walnuts.
Walnuts can also become part of a sauce instead of remaining a garnish. Cilantro Sauce uses walnuts for body and richness, while Raspberry Walnut Salad Dressing shows how well their flavor works with fruit and acidity.
Cooking With Almonds
Almonds are one of the most versatile nuts because they are sold in so many forms. Whole almonds are useful for snacking, roasting and making nut butter. Sliced and slivered almonds add crunch to salads, vegetables and baked dishes, while chopped or ground almonds can become part of crusts and desserts.
Almond butter is another way to use their flavor and natural fat. My Homemade Almond Butter shows how roasted almonds can be processed into a spread and then used in recipes such as Oatmeal Almond Butter Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches.
Almond flour gives gluten-free baking another option. It behaves differently from wheat flour and from cup-for-cup gluten-free blends because it contains the ground nut’s natural fat and has no gluten. See my Gluten-Free Flour Substitutions for Baking guide for more about alternative flours. Recipes such as Blueberry Banana Almond Flour Cupcakes and Almond Flour Coconut Cream Pancakes show it in use.
Almond extract is different from using the nut itself. It is a concentrated flavoring, so a small amount can give cakes, cookies and other desserts a pronounced almond-like aroma. Because commercial extracts vary in how they are made, use the bottle directions and the recipe rather than treating almond extract as interchangeable with ground almonds or almond butter.
Cooking With Pecans
Pecans have a naturally rich, buttery character that moves easily between sweet and savory cooking. They are familiar in desserts such as Southern Pecan Pie, but they are equally useful with vegetables, grains, salads and meat or fish.
A nut crust adds both flavor and texture, as in Oven-Baked Pecan Crusted Salmon. Toasted pecans can also become part of a dressing, as in Roasted Butternut Squash & Blood Orange Salad With a Toasted Pecan Vinaigrette.
Cooking With Pistachios
Pistachios bring a distinctive flavor, green color and crisp texture to both sweet and savory dishes. They pair particularly well with fruit, chocolate, grains and roasted meats.
For a savory example, Wild Rice with Cherry-Glazed Pork & Pistachios uses them for texture against the rice and fruit-glazed pork. In baking, Gluten-Free Pistachio Dark Chocolate Banana Bread pairs their nutty flavor with dark chocolate and ripe banana.
Cooking With Cashews
Cashews are mild, creamy and slightly sweet. Their softer texture makes them useful in stir-fries and sauces as well as snacks and desserts. They can be added near the end of cooking when you want them to retain more crunch.
Instant Pot Cashew Chicken uses cashews as a central part of the finished dish, while Pad Thai Chicken With a Brown Garlic Sauce uses them as a contrasting finish.
Cooking With Hazelnuts
Hazelnuts have a pronounced roasted flavor that works especially well with chocolate, coffee, fruit and buttery baked goods. Toasting them intensifies that flavor. If the papery skins loosen after toasting, you can rub away some of them with a clean kitchen towel, but removing every bit of skin is not necessary for most recipes.
Try them in Hazelnut Shortbread Cookies. Hazelnut flavor also appears in Banana Cajeta French Toast Stack.
Cooking With Macadamia Nuts
Macadamia nuts are rich, buttery and relatively delicate in flavor. They work naturally with coconut, pineapple, white chocolate and other tropical or dessert-oriented ingredients, but their richness can also provide contrast in savory dishes.
Two Cook Plate Fork examples show how well they work in baking and breakfast dishes: Coconut Macadamia Cream Cheese Cookies and Roasted Pineapple Macadamia Pancakes.
Using Nuts in Salads, Vegetables and Grain Dishes
Nuts are particularly useful when a dish needs contrast. A soft roasted vegetable benefits from something crisp. Leafy greens can handle a toasted nut that brings richness. Rice and other grains gain both texture and flavor from a handful of chopped nuts added shortly before serving.
The goal is not necessarily to add a large quantity. Often a modest amount of toasted walnuts, pecans, pistachios or almonds is enough to change the texture of the whole dish.
Using Nuts in Sauces, Pesto and Vinaigrettes
Ground or finely chopped nuts can thicken a sauce and add richness without remaining obviously crunchy. Walnuts, almonds, cashews and other nuts can all play that role depending on the flavor of the dish. Nuts are also useful in pesto-style sauces and vinaigrettes, where their fat and toasted flavor complement herbs, vinegar and citrus.
A Few Tips Before You Cook With Nuts
Taste nuts before adding them to an important recipe, especially if the package has been open for a while. Toast only as dark as the dish needs, because nuts can move from fragrant to burned quickly. Let freshly toasted nuts cool before grinding them, and pulse rather than continuously processing when you want chopped nuts instead of nut butter.
Most importantly, choose the nut for what it contributes. Walnuts bring earthy richness, almonds versatility, pecans buttery sweetness, pistachios distinctive flavor and color, cashews creaminess, hazelnuts deep roasted flavor and macadamias exceptional richness. Once you think about nuts in those terms, they become ingredients rather than just toppings.
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