Christmas Nuts are quick and easy to make and perfect for the holiday season. With cinnamon sugar and cayenne pepper these sweet and spicy nuts are rather addictive! Serve them as a snack, give them as a gift or provide a bowl of nibbles when sitting around the Christmas tree!
Recipes like the Candied Spiced Pecans, Honey Walnut Cream Cheese, Honey Pecan Cream Cheese and the Sugar Coated Peanuts celebrate nuts and their variety of uses.
The Baked Brie With Red Pepper Jelly, Brie Bread Bowl, Spinach Cob Loaf Dip and the Bacon And Cheese Cob Loaf are all great appetizers that work as party starters.
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🤍 Recipe Highlights
I have summarised everything that you will come to know and love (LOVE ❤) about the Christmas nuts recipe in the points below:
- Fun: getting your holiday bake on can be a great way to get into the festive spirit, have a little fun and be creative along the way!
- Back to basics: this is a simple recipe where we melt butter then add the spices and nuts. Anyone of all cooking levels will be able to master the recipe.
- Simple ingredients: you will be able to get each of the ingredients needed to make the recipe from your local grocery store. They are year round available ingredients that will be easier to get your hands on.
- Versatile: you can throw these nuts in a salad, pop them in a bowl for game day, wrap and give as gifts, have them as nibbles or a protein snack when the craving hits.
- Super quick and easy: we use the stove top to make this recipe with store bought roasted nuts. That takes your time and energy commitment to a total of 10 minutes start to finish.
🥗 Ingredients
The photo below is to show you everything you need to make the recipe. Please refer to the printable recipe card for specific ingredient measurements as well as detailed instructions.
As you can see the recipe calls for:
- Butter: we want to use an unsalted butter.
- Cinnamon sugar: sweet with a little bit of sugar, this is a fantastic form of dried cinnamon.
- Cayenne pepper: this is known for being a 'hot spice'. For that reason we only need a little of it to go a long way.
- Peanuts: we want to use roasted salted peanuts (hence unsalted butter).
- Mixed nuts: we use store bought roasted nuts for the recipe. This is because we are cooking the nuts in the spice mix on the stove for a short period of time (not oven baking them). The nuts you see above are a combination of almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios and walnuts.
Top Tip: I like to provide you with a number of substitutions and variations giving you an array of options when making my recipes. If in doubt of any of the above ingredients, or wanting alternatives, read this section (further below) before jumping into the instructions on how to make the recipe which are coming next 😉👌.
🍳 Instructions
Here are the step by step instructions to make the sweet and spicy nuts recipe. We start by melting the butter in a large frying pan.
- Add the butter to the pan (Photo 1)
- Then add the cayenne pepper (Photo 2)
- Add the cinnamon sugar (Photo 3)
- Stir to combine (Photo 4)
👩🍳 How to Make Christmas Nuts
To make the Christmas nuts start by placing a large non stick frying pan on the stove top and turning the heat to high. Add the butter and stir as it melts.
Then add the cayenne pepper and cinnamon sugar and give the butter mixture a stir until they are consistently mixed together like you see in the photo above.
- Add the mixed roasted nuts (Photo 5)
- Add the peanuts (Photo 6)
- Cook the nuts (Photo 7)
- Let the nuts cool (Photo 8)
Once the spices are combined in the butter add the mixed roasted nuts and then the peanuts to the pan.
Then cook the nuts in the butter mixture, stirring regularly. The nuts will take 5-6 minutes to cook and you will notice that they absorb the butter mixture as they heat and toast.
Once they are cooked, transfer the nuts to a silicon mat on a wire rack or onto a paper towel lined chopping board. Then let them cool 😉👍.
🍽 Serving Suggestions
As these nuts have both sweet and spicy flavors, I don't recommend using them with ice-cream the way I do with the Candied Pecans.
These have a predominately savory flavor so they are best served as a snack, appetizer or wrapped for Christmas gift nuts as you see in the photo below.
👍 How to Guide
How to Store
Store the nuts in a sealed, airtight container for 2 weeks.
😉 Substitutions and Variations
Here are my sub ins and outs that you might be thinking about as you read the post and I will tell you if I think they will work or why they won't:
- If you want to do all of one type of nut ie almonds, pecans, hazelnuts you can.
- For extra 'sweet' nuts, you can add 1 teaspoon of white sugar when you are adding the cayenne pepper and cinnamon sugar to the melted butter.
- This is an egg free nut recipe. For an idea on how to use egg yolks to make sugared nuts have a look at the Sugar Coated Peanuts recipe 😁👌.
💡 Tasty Tips
Here are my top tips and tricks that I want to share with you so that you master the recipe from the get go:
- After adding the spices to the melted butter, we want to stir these together till the mixture is consistent before adding the nuts.
- Letting the nuts cool is really important as it is the space and time where they firm up. If you try one when they are cooked, it won't have reached its full crisp capacity as it is still warm.
- You can use paper towel under the nuts as they cool to absorb any wetness from the nuts (when they are cooking).
- Add the nuts to gift bags or jars with a ribbon and label them if you want to give them as Christmas presents 😉👍.
- If rocky road is your favorite festive food to bake you might like to try the Malteser Rocky Road, 4 Ingredient Rocky Road, Dark Chocolate Rocky Road or the Christmas Rocky Road.
- Or if fudge is your thing try the Chocolate Orange Fudge, Mint Aero Fudge, Malteser Fudge, Candy Cane Fudge, Microwave Chocolate Fudge or the Marshmallow Fudge.
🤓 Frequently Asked Questions
What nuts are popular at Christmas?
Some popular nuts seen at Christmas time are peanuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts, pecans and almonds.
How do you serve nuts at a party?
To serve nuts at a party add them to small bowls and place them on the serving table.
What nibbles to have at Christmas?
It is good to have an array of sweet and savory foods for Christmas nibbles. For sweet try fudge, chocolate bark and truffles. For savory try baked brie, dips and cheese.
😍 More Easy Sweet and Savory Recipes
Get into the festive season or simply whip up some sweet treats with an array of recipes that tick the sweet or savory boxes. Here are some more ideas for you to try:
- Cream Cheese Pepper Jelly
- Blueberry Croissant Bake
- Christmas Oreo Balls
- White Chocolate Oreo Balls
- Christmas Chocolates
- Microwave Marshmallow Fudge
- 6 Egg Pavlova
- Baked Brie with Garlic
- Honey Baked Camembert
- Microwave Chocolate Pudding
It is time to get our nuts on my friend. You can also find all of my Christmas recipes in the one spot.
Adrianne
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📖 Recipe
Christmas Nuts
Ingredients
- 60 grams/1/2 stick butter
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon sugar
- 3 cups roasted mixed nuts
- 1 cup roasted salted peanuts
Instructions
- Butter: place a large frying pan onto the stove top and turn the heat to high. Then add the butter and let it melt.
- Spices: once the butter has melted add both the cayenne pepper and cinnamon sugar and stir to combine.
- Nuts: next add the roasted mixed nuts to the pan, followed by the salted peanuts.
- Cook: stir to combine the nuts and allow them to cook in the spiced butter mixture. Cook them for 5-6 minutes until the butter mixture is all absorbed by the nuts. Note 6
- Cool: once the nuts have cooked, transfer them to a silicon mat or paper towel lined chopping board and let them cool.
- To serve: use the nuts for salad, snacks or Christmas gift giving.
Notes
- Note 1 - Butter: we want to use an unsalted butter as we use roasted salted peanuts.
- Note 2 - Cinnamon sugar: sweet with a little bit of sugar, this is a fantastic form of dried cinnamon. It will be in the herbs and spiced section of the grocery store.
- Note 3 - Cayenne pepper: this is known for being a 'hot spice'. For that reason we only need a little of it to go a long way.
- Note 4 - Peanuts: we want to use roasted salted peanuts (hence unsalted butter).
- Note 5 - Mixed nuts: we use store bought roasted nuts for the recipe. This is because we are cooking the nuts in the spice mix on the stove for a short period of time (not oven baking them). The nuts you see above are a combination of almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pistachios and walnuts. To give you a rough idea when looking at the bags or roasted nuts this is around 400 grams/14 oz.
- Note 6 - Crisp nuts: if you try a nut when they are cooked and notice that they are bendy and not fully crisp, this is because they crisp up as they cool. So let them do that and then try one 😁👌.
Ellen says
My partner loves spicy nuts so I will have to give these a go for him. Thanks!
Adrianne says
You are very welcome Ellen. Thanks for your feedback.