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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
I wasn’t sure if the walnuts would get toasted enough, but they were perfect. I did add a tiny bit of water to help melt the sugar and cooked them a little longer just below medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar was
golden brown. I found 2 forks worked well to separate the nuts. I’ll be making these again and again!
Thank you for sharing, Nancy! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe.
Perfect and so easy! I added a pinch of salt towards the end.
Tried it once, my sugar never really melted and didn’t coat the walnuts (1 cup of walnuts wasted)
I read all the reviews and tried the advice you gave Diane, and that still didn’t work. I end up with big clumps of sugar and butter. It never stuck to the nuts.
Hi Elaine, did your sugar melt at all? I wonder if it just needed a little more heat?
Easy and perfect with pears and green salad ingredients.
They sure are a yummy addition!
Are these more of a caramel like coating? Thx
Hi Judith, once the coating dries, it is a crisp coating.
Have made these many times and they always come out great! They’re very yummy!
My sugar didn’t stick to the walnuts and just were blobs of sugar on the bottom if the pan. What did I do wrong?
Hi Diane! It could be that the sugar didn’t caramelize. It could be because the pan wasn’t hot enough when you added the sugar, make sure the pan is over medium heat allowing the sugar to melt. I also recommend stirring it frequently while the sugar melts and when you add the walnuts to ensure the sugar doesn’t separate.
I had the same issue as Diane. Maybe clarifying that in the recipe would help.
Hi Diane! You need to have the heat fairly high, keep vigorously stirring so the sugar and walnuts don’t burn but basically waiting for the sugar to liquefy like; you’ll see it turn into like a thick liquid like state and then you know the sugar has crystallized.
Found this recipe in a panic when i remembered (at 9 p.m.) I was expected to bring a salad topping for a potluck at work the next day. I happened to have walnuts on hand, so i was able to whip up a couple of batches and still be in bed by 9:45! Delicious!
I’m so glad this recipe came to the rescue, Anne! Thank you so much for sharing that with me.
I’ve been wanting to find a candied recipe that doesn’t have eggs in it. I added a bit of water(1 Tbsp) to the 2nd batch and a dash of cinnamon!! Worked like a charm! And the house SMELLS AMAZING!! $10 at the Christmas Mart for a small bag?? I’m making my own from now on! 😁💖
I never knew how easy candied nuts were to make. I used brown sugar instead of white.
Thank you for trying this recipe, Mandy!
Recipe was perfect. At first I wondered if the sugar was going to melt but it did towards last minute and a half. Delicious. I will make these again. Thank you!
I love your recipes, but there’s something glitchy about this one. Knowing that there are mostly 5 star reviews, clearly it’s working for most, but even with following the recipe exactly the sugar never melted — and yes it was regular table sugar (maybe an off brand mattered?!) Low heat, lots of stirring, and it turned into little clumps of cooked sugar that were almost cardboard like, and often not attached to the walnuts. Made it again, with pecans, and this time put a little water in and melted the sugar, then added the nuts and that seemed to work fine.
Hi Nischky, I appreciate your feedback. I’ll re-make this soon to see if I can offer more advice or update it – a bit of sugar may help make this more fail-proof.
I suspect your local butter has a lower water percentage than the butter Natasha and many of the reviewers used, hence why adding your own water produced different results!
the recipe worked perfectly aa written. No idea why some other folks had a problem. Great recipe. From a retired chef. Thanks!
I’m so happy to hear you loved it, Ron!
This recipe doesn’t work as written. Adding everything at once doesn’t allow the sugar to dissolve fully before some sugar starts to carmelize.
Hi CJ! Try using lower heat. Also, do not stir vigorously, allow it time to melt. If you are using a larger granule sugar, it will also take longer to melt.
Such a quick, easy, and yummy snack. Thank you very much for the recipe!
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, Wendy!
Sugar clumped together. Walnuts didn’t get coated.
Hi Brianna, that can happen over too high of heat. I think I need to do a video tutorial on this one!
OMG we made a batch of these to put in a carrot cake and ended up eating the whole batch before being able to put it in the cake and had to make another. Will definitely be making these again!
That’s so great! It sounds like you have a new favorite snack, Harmon!
Hello, how would you store these once making a load for an event? How long do they keep?
Hi Sophie! They are fine to store at room temperature in an air-tight container for up to a week. Or you can refrigerate/freeze for longer storage. If you refrigerate, the humidity can make them stick together so watch for that.
Not sure how to rate this. All recipes I’ve tried have not coated the walnuts evenly, I end up with globs of browned sugar not an even sugar coating. What am I doing wrong?
Hi Vanessa. Are you using a large granule sugar? If so, it will not melt down the same. I would also suggest lowering the heat and melting a sugar on lower heat. I hope that helps.
The sugar did not melt at all but became lump of crystals, so I fixed it by pouring 3 tbsp of boiling water to melt the sugar and kept stirring till it wasthick and coating the walnuts, then i transferred it to parchment paper and separated it . I also added ground cinnamon and a pinch of salt to balance the taste while I was cooking it.
Hi Geena! Did you use a different type of sugar? If the granules were larger it would take longer to melt down. You may also try to melt it on lower heat and stir less often. Vigorously starting and using high heat could cause it to get clumpy. I hope that helps.
I found this recipe about 3 months ago and I love it! I’ve made it for a number of my friends. My husband said he needed his own jar because I was eating them faster than him!
Warning…they are really good!