If you ever had spiced nuts you would know they can be pretty addictive. That's if you have a great recipe for spiced nuts that actually taste great. Like these Thai spiced cashews.
Simple to make. Uses all your easy to find Thai favourites and can be stored for a long time. Perfect for a quick snack or to serve at parties and get-togethers.
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Let's be honest. Store-bought spiced nuts are not exciting and are mostly pretty bad and tasteless. That's why I roll the homemade spiced nuts route and make my own.
More specifically these are Thai spiced cashews and they are extremely moreish and incredibly addictive. Much like this parmesan sablés.
They have all the spicy, fragrant, sweet, salty and sour flavours we all love so much in Thai food.
Needless to say, these are amazing with an ice-cold beer or well chilled white wine. Although, I snack on them all through the day, and then sometimes sprinkle them onto dishes like this Massaman curry or this butter chicken.
So, be warned and make a double batch straight away, as you'll be chomping through these in no time.
Ingredients needed
The ingredients are easy to find and you can buy most of these in either a supermarket or local Asian store.
I used store-bought curry paste for this recipe as I hardly think any of you would make the paste from scratch just to roast some nuts. Ready-made paste does a very good job.
- Cashew nuts - Use pre-roasted unsalted or raw good quality cashews.
- Curry paste - I used red curry paste but you could also make your own or use this massaman curry paste instead.
- Sugar - Regular fine white sugar, otherwise palm sugar, honey or agave syrup also works great.
- Lime - Fresh green limes.
- Lime leaves - Buy fresh or frozen.
- Egg - You will only need the egg white, so feel free to buy pasteurised egg white in a carton if you want.
- Soy sauce - Use a naturally brewed soy sauce.
- Fish sauce - Same goes for this. Use a good natural brand of fish sauce.
- Coconut Oil - extra virgin or else, use cooking oil.
- Seasoning - a touch of fine sea salt.
How to make it
- Turn the oven to 150 degrees Celcius or 302 degrees Fahrenheit and roast the cashews for 10 minutes. This step is mainly to dry them out a bit as sometimes cashews are quite moist. Alternatively, you could also use pre-roasted cashews with no salt or anything added. Just make sure to keep an even closer look at them when roasting to make sure they don't burn.
- Blend the lime leaves in a spice grinder or chop very finely with a super sharp knife.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a bowl and spread out onto a baking tray lined with good quality parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Turn the oven up to 165 degrees Celcius or 338 degrees Fahrenheit and bake for about 25 minutes or until deep golden brown while giving the nuts a mix every 5 minutes or so. This is to make sure they brown evenly.
- When you are happy with the colour, remove and let them cool down completely before storing in an airtight container in a cool dry place.
Storage instructions
Once cooled store in an airtight container in a cool dry place.
If you live in a humid environment it's best to keep them refrigerated to avoid the nuts going stale.
They will keep for many months stored correctly.
Variations
You can easily modify this spiced nuts recipe to your own taste. This is how:
- Nuts - Change the cashew nuts to any other nut. Like hazelnut, peanut, pecan or walnuts. Or, do a mixed spiced nuts recipe by using them in combination.
- Aromatics - Use finely chopped lemongrass along with the lime leaves or add some minced galangal.
- Seasonings - Change the soy sauce and fish sauce to other similar umami-rich sauces like Worcestershire sauce, anchovy essence or tamari.
- Sweetness - Use palm sugar, honey, maple syrup or agave syrup instead of normal white sugar.
Serving suggestions
Naturally, spiced nuts go great with drinks. Especially beers, ales and other fermented drinks like white wine.
- With other Asian foods like this Massaman curry, this coconut chicken curry, this beaten Chinese cucumber salad or crush up and sprinkle on top of this Indian butter chicken.
- Their also a nice little side snack along with other salads and appetisers like creamy tahini coleslaw, this pea mint and feta dip, this seabass crudo or these roasted Romano peppers.
- They are also great crushed up and sprinkled on to other side dishes like this silky smooth mashed potatoes, this versatile creamed spinach, or even when making the perfect rice and serving with this amazing Filipino beef adobo.
Useful equipment for this recipe
Electronic Kitchen Scales
Baking Sheets
Storage Containers
Silicone Spatula
Related recipes
- Couscous - Morrocan spiced and perfect with Mom's roasted leg of lamb.
- Georgian Adjika - Spice paste you could also use.
- Sriracha - Easy homemade fermented hot sauce with huge flavour.
- Parmesan biscuits - My other favourite snack with drinks.
- Pistachio dukkah - Spiced nut mix.
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Recipe
Thai Spiced Cashew Nuts
Ingredients
- 400 g (3 cups) cashew nuts - roasted or raw but not salted
- 10 (10) lime leaves - finely chopped or blended
- 15 g (1 ½ tablespoon) red curry paste
- 2 g (½ teaspoon) salt
- 10 g (2 teaspoon) egg white
- 30 g (3 tablespoon) powdered sugar
- 5 g (1 teaspoon) lime juice
- 5 g (1 teaspoon) soy sauce
- 10 g (2 teaspoon) fish sauce
Instructions
- Turn the oven to 150°C or 302°F and roast the cashews for 10 minutes. This step is mainly to dry them out a bit as sometimes cashews are quite moist. Alternatively, you could also use pre-roasted cashews with no salt or anything added. Just make sure to keep an even closer look at them when roasting to make sure they don't burn.
- Blend the lime leaves in a spice grinder or chop very finely with a super sharp knife.
- Mix together all the ingredients in a bowl and spread out onto a baking tray lined with good quality parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Turn the oven up to 165°C or 338°F and bake for about 25 minutes or until deep golden brown while giving the nuts a mix every 5 minutes or so. This is to make sure they brown evenly.
- When you are happy with the colour, remove and let them cool down completely before storing in an airtight container in a cool dry place.
Notes
- When cooled down the texture should be crispy and flavour well balanced and nuanced.
- Can also be made using whole blanched almonds or shelled cleaned peanuts.
- Store in a cool dry place sealed airtight.
- Will keep well for months stored correctly.
Jessie
There's a kind of Thai tapas restaurant near my home that sells something just like this (only they use peanuts), but often when we order them, they are all out. So frustrating! From now on I can get my fix at home (and with cashews!). These are absolutely amazing!!! Mine were done after 15 minutes. Thanks!!
Chelsea
Beginner cook here - I don't have a spice grinder, but I do have a blender. However, if I just put the lime leaves in, the blender blades look like they'd be too tall to chop the lime leaves. So I was wondering if it would do anything bad if I combined the whole lime leaves and all the rest of the sauce ingredients into the blender, so that it would have enough volume for the blender blades to have something to work on, and then used the blender to chop the lime leaves/mix the sauce up that way?
Charlé Visser
Should work fine…