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These caramelized, candied walnuts are quite a treat. Toss them into your salad, over popcorn, or straight into your mouth. Crunch. Crunch.
I love this easy method of making the candied nuts where everything goes into the pan at once. Other methods I’ve tried left me with globs of candy on the nuts rather than a more even coating.
It also roasts the nuts at the same time so you don’t have to pre-toast them, then add them back to the pan to be coated, blah, blah. Who needs extra steps?
It seriously takes about 5 minutes on the stove and 5 minutes to cool. The finished product is delicious! My husband was sampling them right out of the pan. P.S. This recipe can easily be doubled.
Ingredients for Candied Walnuts:
1 cup walnut halves/pieces (you can also use this recipe for candied pecans)
1/4 cup white granulated sugar (not coarse sugar)
1 Tbsp unsalted butter
How To Make 5 Minute Candied Walnuts:
1. Heat a medium non-stick skillet over medium heat, add 1 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 1 Tbsp butter.
2. Heat over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently (with a heat proof non-plastic spatula) so your mixture doesn’t burn (especially towards the end). When the sugar mixture starts melting, stir constantly until all sugar is melted and nuts are coated.
3. Transfer immediately onto a sheet of parchment paper and separate the nuts right away. Using two spatulas will make this task go faster.
You don’t want to give the nuts a chance to turn into a wad of inseparable delicious goodness unless you are the only person who will be enjoying the wad ;). Seriously, move quickly from the time the nuts are coated until they are separated out on the parchment paper.
Once the coating hardens (5-7 minutes), you can transfer them to a bowl and either inhale them right then and there or save ’em for a salad or something.
Enjoy, {crunch} pin it to your “recipes to keep forever” board, {crunch. crunch} and let me know how you liked the candied walnuts! {Crunch. Cruuunch. Crunch}
5 minute Candied Walnuts

Ingredients
- 1 cup walnut halves/pieces, you can also use this recipe for candied pecans
- 1/4 cup white granulated sugar, (not coarse sugar)
- 1 Tbsp unsalted butter
Instructions
- Heat a medium non-stick skillet over medium heat, add 1 cup walnuts, 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 1 Tbsp butter.
- Heat over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently so your mixture doesn't burn (especially towards the end). When the sugar mixture starts melting, stir constantly until all sugar is melted and nuts are coated.
- Transfer immediately onto a sheet of parchment paper and separate the nuts right away. Using two spatulas will make this task go faster. You don't want to give the nuts a chance to turn into a wad of inseparable delicious goodness unless you are the only person who will be enjoying the wad ;). Seriously, move quickly from the time the nuts are coated until they are separated out on the parchment paper.
- Once the coating hardens (5-7 minutes), you can transfer them to a bowl and enjoy!
P.S. If you haven’t allready, make sure to try our honey roasted almonds. They are also amazing
Thanks for this recipe! After googling candied nuts I was not in the mood to have my nuts in the oven for an hour on this beautiful day, after I saw your 5 minute version I was thrilled! It turned out great. Thanks for the heads up on moving fast to seperate them once they are done. I frantically seperated the nuts with two spatulas. It was quite amusing. I’m putting these on my spinach salad I hope the combo works!
Oooh let me know how it goes on your spinach salad and I want to know more about this spinach salad of yours! I’m always looking for new ideas you know 😉
Oh wow that sure sounds like an amazing salad! Thanks for reporting back 🙂
Hello,
I have made this lovely recipe twice exactly how it says to make it and have somehow messed it up twice. All my sugar clumps together and only sticks to a few nuts, while leaving the unstuck nuts butter covered. It tastes yummy but what am I doing wrong? The butter and sugar separate….. help! I love this and want to get it right! Thank you!
The key is to stir constantly and keep it over medium heat so it doesn’t clump up too quickly. You want to give the sugar a chance to melt but not burn. I sure hope that helps! 🙂
Thank you for your response. It must be just operator error. I’ll keep trying.
Third times the charm I guess. I just wasn’t leaving it in the pan long enough, I was too worried about it burning. I tried a little patience the time and it worked a lot better. Thank you.
Yes!! I’m so glad to hear that 🙂
Yeah… This recipe didn’t work for me. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t measure anything, or because I ate all the walnuts while they were cooling, or what. But all I ended up with was a bunch of sugary clumps of sugar. Which I ate. Immediately after finishing off the walnuts.
Not measuring will definitely affect the outcome. Without knowing exactly how much of what you put in, I’m not sure I can figure out what happened. I’m glad you were able to eat and enjoy them anyway 🙂
hi do you have Oreshki (Орешки) Walnut Печенье recipe?
I don’t currently have a documented recipe. My husband made them before but I have no idea how he did it. :-O One of these days… 🙂
If I was to make a lot of this and put in jars to sell at a school fete how long could I store them for?
They would last for several days at room temperature. Keep them away from heat and moisture and they should be good up to a week.
I made the recipe and I like it a lotbut the mixture of the sugar and butter when put on the parchment paper was pooling at the bottom. Butthis recipe iswell worth it for it’s crunchyand taste SO NICE! I loveit even though it wasn’t perfect. Also it was very nice forI had a lot f walnuts I got from my aunt who has a walnut tree. still tastes like walnuts even with the sugar in it.
I had he opposite situation :). I think it helps to cook the nuts slightly longer until you get a better coating on the walnuts. Then you won’t get much pooling at the bottom.
When me and my ant looked at this recipe we thought it looked supper delicious and when we made it, it was very delicious.
That’s awesome! I’m so happy you liked it 🙂
I thought I was following the recipe, but my spatula ended up melting as I stirred the nuts. Now I have to buy a new spatula and the nuts were ruined and had melted plastic all over them. Officially the worst cooking disaster of the year.
Oh no! That’s awful! It sounds like your spatula wasn’t heat proof. There are some spatulas that are only meant to spread frosting and fold ingredients together. Check the label on your next spatula to make sure sure it is heat proof.
made these, very good! fast and easy too.
Wooohoooo!!! Yess!!!! (Can you tell I’m happy about your success?). Thanks for a great review 🙂
Hello Tatyana
I was wondering if it’s possible to substitute sugar for honey…my son is not allowed to have sugar at all
I haven’t tried with honey in this recipe, but I do have another roasted nuts recipe with honey. You might omit the spices for young palates 🙂
Will I have the same results using honey instead?
I haven’t tried this particular recipe with honey, so I’m not sure exactly how long the honey would have to cook before it hardens. It might work better with honey if you use this recipe: https://natashaskitchen.com/2012/08/12/spiced-honey-roasted-almonds/ (p.s. you will love it!).
This is a must try!!! I a. Grabbing some walnuts and making right away! Thanks for another delicious recipe!!! 🙂
I hope you love them!! P.S. After you’re done eating these, make sure to try my honey roasted almonds too. Oh boy! https://natashaskitchen.com/2012/08/12/spiced-honey-roasted-almonds/ 🙂
Hi Natasha,
I love your website! For a twist on this recipe, try adding a bit of pepper flakes and/or a pinch of rosemary to the nuts when you are mixing in the sugar and butter. It’s delicious!
Ooh that does sound delicious. I like the thought of adding some heat to it. Thanks!
Hi Natasha, do u think it will be good if I make it with salted peanuts?
You’ll have to be quicker about separating them out since they are smaller unless you want it to be a peanut bark 🙂 but I think it would work
Hi Natasha, love this recipe.
Do you happened to know how to make honey crisp walnuts? I think they are backed…. When we go to Chinese restaurant they have them with coconut shrimps. Just love them, but have no recipe….
I haven’t. I actually had to google that one but didn’t really come up with anything. If I come across anything like that, I’ll be sure to share 🙂
Thank you!
This could be it! But I remember the waiter said the walnuts were baked with honey… hmm…
Ooh wow that sounds delicious!
Just made some with walnuts and cashews, yum:) my mom is asking me to make some more, delicious, Thank you Natasha: )
Awesome!! Easy, huh? I want some candied cashews. yum!!
I LOVE these nuts for salads. Thank you
Me too! Me too! 🙂
I love them in salads with lots of greens!
Me too! They’re a nice surprise in salad for sure!
I like this recipe. Thank you and have a wonderful Sunday.
Thanks Liz! You have a happy Sunday too. I hope it’s a relaxing day for you 🙂
I love this recipe. I have candied some nuts and they had lots of blah blah blah lol 🙂
I tried some other more complicated methods and they weren’t even as good as these easy peasy ones! 😉