Candied Walnuts

I love salads with candied walnuts or pecans in them. The perfect salad to me has candied walnuts, fruit, and goat cheese; it works every time. I was cooking salmon and butternut squash last night and thought a salad would be great on the side. I was going to swing by the store and buy candied walnuts but realized I had a bag of plain walnuts already…candying can’t be that difficult right?

It’s not, it’s so easy! I mean, I did technically use the easiest recipe out there (you can get pretty creative) but it still tasted great. I think next time I’ll add more to it like cinnamon or vanilla? This was my first go at it so I kept it simple:

Candied Walnuts

• 1 1/2 cups of walnuts
• 1/2 cup sugar
• pinch of salt

That’s it!

First, I toasted the walnuts for about 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Next was the tricky part, or so I thought: cooking the sugar. I’m always scared I’m going to burn sugar and somehow the whole house will explode, but don’t you worry…no explosions over here!

Since I was paranoid about burning the sugar, I stirred it the entire time until it cooked down to an amber color.

Once it melted down, I added the walnuts and mixed them as quick as I could with the sugar.

I poured the walnuts onto parchment paper and attempted to separate them out using a fork. The sugar dries really fast so you could very well be left with a giant piece of walnut brittle (is that was brittle is?) or just a sugar walnut bar.

The sugar was intense! Not that that’s a bad thing..

No separating that bad boy!

Once the walnuts cooled, I put them in a bowl and stuck them in the fridge. You could probably leave them out, but I wasn’t sure so fridge it was. We had them last night (and tonight) on a salad with pickled beets and gorgonzola cheese.

They turned out great! These are so easy to make and are great on salads or as a snack. Like I said before, I think next time I’ll add different spices to the mix and play around with it.

We’re headed to Wyoming for a few days tomorrow to go camping and hunting (my husband is the hunter). I haven’t been camping in a long time..I think since girl scout days? Even then I think we were in cabins, so this will either be really fun or really awful…I guess we’ll see!

Are you a camper? Or do you prefer “camping” in cabins with running water and toilets?