Candied Pecans
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These candied pecans are perfect to serve with cocktails or toss over salads, and the best part is they take just 15 minutes to make!
Photo by Alexandra Grablewski (Chronicle Books, 2018)
These sweet, spicy, and salty candied pecans are madly delicious. They’re perfect to serve with cocktails, toss over salads, or just keep around the house over the holidays. They also make a fabulous homemade gift. The best part? You only need four simple ingredients to make them — and if you start right now, you’ll be done in 15 minutes. What are you waiting for?
“I made these just as written and they are PERFECT!! I plan to make another batch to take on a car trip next weekend. I’ll need to pack them in the trunk so I don’t eat them all before I get there!”
What You’ll Need To Make Candied Pecans
- Confectioners’ sugar: Combined with water, it creates a syrupy glaze when baked, coating the pecans evenly and caramelizing the exterior.
- Kosher salt: Adds a savory balance to the sweetness of the sugar.
- Cayenne pepper: Provides a hint of heat for a flavorful, subtle kick.
- Water: Mixed with the sugar and seasonings, helps create a syrupy consistency to coat the pecans evenly.
- Pecans: Serve as the crunchy base of the recipe. Pecans’ crevices absorb the flavorful glaze during baking.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Begin by combining the Confectioners sugar, kosher salt, cayenne pepper and 4 teaspoons of water in a medium bowl.
Whisk until combined.
Add the pecans to the sugar mixture and stir until evenly coated.
Place the nuts on a parchment lined baking sheet in a single layer.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the nuts are crusty on top and caramelized on the bottom.
Slide the parchment off of the baking sheet onto a countertop; this stops the nuts from overcooking on the hot baking sheet.
When the nuts are completely cool, use your hands to break them apart.
Transfer the nuts to a bowl and serve, or store in a covered container for up to a few weeks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Other nuts will definitely work, but pecans are wonderful due to all the crevices they have to collect the glaze. Walnuts work nicely too.
The nuts have a hint of heat, but they’re not spicy enough that they would put off anyone (unless they’re very sensitive to spice). That said, a number of people have used ground cinnamon in place of the cayenne pepper. Alternatively, if you want to up the heat, you can add a little more cayenne to the glaze mixture.
Confectioners’ sugar is preferred for its fine texture, which dissolves quickly, creating a smoother glaze. Granulated sugar may not dissolve as well, affecting the texture of the candied pecans.
VIDEO TUTORIAL
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Candied Pecans
These candied pecans are perfect to serve with cocktails or toss over salads, and the best part is they take just 15 minutes to make!
Ingredients
- ½ cup Confectioners' sugar
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 4 teaspoons water
- 2 cups pecans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and set an oven rack in the middle position. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the Confectioners' sugar, kosher salt, cayenne pepper, and water.
- Add the pecans to the sugar mixture and stir until the nuts are evenly coated.
- Transfer the pecans to the prepared baking sheet and arrange in a single layer. Do your best to make sure the nuts are evenly spread out (if they are clumped together, they won't cook evenly). Scrape out every last bit of glaze from the bowl and drizzle over the nuts. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the pecans are caramelized and the caramel on the baking sheet is a rich brown color but not burnt. (The nuts around the edges will darken first; watch closely so they don't burn.)
- Immediately slide the parchment off of the hot baking sheet and allow the pecans to cool completely on the countertop (this stops the cooking process and prevents the nuts from burning). Once cool, remove the pecans from the parchment, breaking apart any clusters if necessary, and store in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
- Note: If the nuts are sticky after cooling, that means they are a bit undercooked. Pop them back in the oven for a few minutes and let cool again.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (8 servings)
- Serving size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 217
- Fat: 20 g
- Saturated fat: 2 g
- Carbohydrates: 11 g
- Sugar: 8 g
- Fiber: 3 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 178 mg
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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Comments
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I love making these. They are so tasty but hardly take anything to make.
I made some today, however, and they are softer and very sticky. I put them back in the oven, as you suggested but this didn’t dry them out.
All in all, I probably baked them for close to 25 minutes. Any other suggestions?
Sorry you had a problem this time around! Wow, the fact that you baked them for close to 25 minutes and still couldn’t get them to the right texture leads me to believe that perhaps you made a measuring error. Is there any chance that could be the case? Or might your oven temperature be off?
Have you ever tried these with a sugar substitute like Swerve icing sugar, curious as I’m trying to cut carbs a bit.
Hi Marina, I wish I could help but I’ve never worked with sugar substitutes so I can’t say how it would impact these. (If it helps at all, I have read plenty of comments from readers who have said they’ve replaced some or all of the sugar in a recipe with a substitute and have had good results.) Hope that helps at least a bit (and please report back if you try them this way)!
These are completely delicious! I made them a day in advance for a salad I was serving for Easter. I had to remake them Easter morning because my husband and I ate them all, and I made a lot! He has asked me to please never run out of these nuts. Coming from him that is the greatest compliment because he (unlike me) eats to live. These nuts would make an excellent gift during the holidays if I can give them away immediately, or I’m sure they would disappear. This recipe is also much easier and less messy than others I have tried and 10X better! Thank you so much for this recipe!
Just made 4 recipes. Turned out delicious! I have made these with an egg white based recipe for many years. Like this recipe much better as nuts don’t cook as long and separate much easier! Recipe is a keeper!
Simple and delicious. Followed recipe exactly and the nuts were a perfect blend of sweet, salty and spicy. No one flavor overpowered the other. It really did take just minutes to prepare and cook. I brought these to my book club and everyone loved them!
OMG- so good, so easy! Definitely could be hard to stop eating.
The BEST.
Add good quality vanilla ice cream to a bowl, sprinkle cinnamon. Add pecans and whipped cream
and then add the sugar shards on top of whipped cream.
Thanks Jen.
These are fantastic, however could this recipe also work with peanuts?
Glad you like them! Technically, peanuts will work here, but I like pecans for this recipe because they have all the cracks and crevices that the glaze sinks into. Please LMK how they turn out if you try them with peanuts!
Hi Jenn! The peanuts worked great but I made a few adjustments. I only used one cup of peanuts instead of two and kept tossing them in the oven every 10 min so the sugar would stick. They are great! Thank you for the recipe!
So glad they worked out — thanks for reporting back!
Could I substitute maple syrup for icing sugar and if so how much would you recommend. Thanks.
I wouldn’t recommend it, Jude — sorry!
Very quick and easy recipe as written and tastes good. I made two batches one of them as written (it baked for 15 minutes at 5280ft) and for the second one I replaced one teaspoon of the water with vanilla extract, 1/2 of the powdered sugar with brown sugar, used a full teaspoon of cayenne and about a 1/4-1/2tsp of fresh fround black pepper. Baked for 15 minutes also. Depends on your taste but we liked the slight bit of additional complexity. Thanks for the very easy recipe that’s easy to tweak if desired.
These pecans were GREAT, and so fast to prepare! Jenn, you were right on the money when you said if you start making these now you’ll be eating them in 15 minutes!
I had some odd pecans left over that were purchased when I bought some nuts and spices at the bulk store, and the 5-spice powder somehow infiltrated the pecans! They made some unusual tasting chocolate chip pecan cookies! I wondered what to do with the rest and looked up candied pecan recipes. I wasn’t surprised to find a great recipe here, because I often land at your blog when searching recipes.
The icing sugar is brilliant. It created a fairly thick mixture that really stuck to the nuts, and didn’t create a super sticky end product, that has happened before when I’ve tried candied nuts with maple syrup, honey or brown sugar.
I decided to intentionally amp up the 5-spice flavor by adding it to the sugar mixture, and they were THE BOMB! With the sweet salty heat, the flavor combination was really outstanding. I will be making these again (and will play with other flavor combinations, too).
Thanks!