3 Ways to Make Preschool-Friendly Roasted Pumpkin Seeds!

Updated October 2021

Do you save your pumpkin seeds when you carve a pumpkin?

I'd like to recommend that you do! Here's why!

After our Pumpkin Card craft project we made roasted pumpkin seeds. We melted some butter in a pan and toasted the seeds. Then we separated the seeds into three different pie plates so that we could have different flavors. We added the spices and other ingredients and roasted them in the oven. Once they were cool we enjoyed tasting the different seeds. Spoiler alter: her favorite seeds were the sweet ones!

Always closely supervise children when cooking!

Our recipes were modified from multiple sites so feel free to modify them as you'd like! We collected about 1 1/2 cups of seeds from our pumpkin so we did 3 half-cup recipes. You may need to increase or decrease the ingredients as needed for the amount of seeds you collect.

Let's Roast Some Seeds

Preheat your oven to 350*

We cooked all of the seeds in a saute pan in 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter (that's 1/2 T for each 1/2 C of seeds). This took about 10 minutes over medium to medium-high heat.

Then we put 1/2 C of toasted seeds in 3 different bowl. (Although after the fact I realized that I could have just put them right in the pie pans.)

Then we added the following seasonings:

Sweet Maple Seeds

to 1/2 C of toasted seeds add

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon allspice

1/2 tablespoon maple syrup

Spicy-Savory Seeds

to 1/2 C of toasted seeds add

1/2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

pinch garlic powder

pinch cayenne pepper

Salty Seeds

to 1/2 C of toasted seeds add

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt (more/less as desired)

Mix seasonings and seeds then pour into 3 different pie pans. Then I put pie pans in the oven for 30-45 minutes stirring every 10 minutes. She was so excited to watch me stir the seeds every time the timer went off! (Disclaimer: please make sure your young child stays away from the hot oven!)

First Out of the Oven:

Our Spicy-Savory Seeds and Salty Seeds finished before our Sweet Maple Seeds. I poured them out on waxed paper to cool and then enjoyed talking about how different they tasted. We used all sorts of words to describe the seeds: "crunchy," "sweet," "spicy," "salty" and "mine."

Yum!

I honestly had no idea how she would feel about the seeds. She is not always adventurous when it comes to trying new foods, but she could not get enough of them. I had to actually move her away from the seeds to get her to stop eating them! This was definitely the highlight of the weekend!

I hope you roast some pumpkin seeds with your child! I know you'll have a great time!

-Lauren :)

Pin it for Later:

PS: Want more ideas that you can do with your child? Subscribe by clicking the button below!

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above may be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Please know that I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”