How To Toast Pecans In The Microwave

People sure do have a lot of opinions about nuts, don't they? Whether it's about what nuts you should and shouldn't eat or the ways you should eat them, everyone seems to have a little nugget of nut-based wisdom to drop. I'm here today to tell you my own potentially blasphemous piece of knowledge which may very well change how you eat nuts forever — you can use your microwave to toast nuts.

I used pecans for this experiment because I wanted to make spicy pecans as a little treat to myself. Theoretically, you could apply your new microwave-roasting knowledge to toast most any kind of nuts, but let's keep our eyes on the pecan prize here. To toast pecans in the microwave, you want to spread your nuts out in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate. Then, microwave them for three minutes. Give them a stir and pop them back in for another minute or two. I suggest going in 30 second bursts so you can keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.

When you toast pecans in the oven, you have a visual indicator of doneness by how browned the nuts look. That's not really going to be a thing when you microwave your nuts, though. So, how do you check the doneness of your pecans when toasting them like this? Simple: Follow your nose. You want to smell a sweet, nutty aroma when you pop the plate out and give it a sniff. You should do a sniff test often because pecans are a delicate little nut that will burn the moment you give them the chance to.

This works for whole nuts, but if you're going to microwave chopped pecans, you'll want to take even more care because chopped nuts burn even faster. Start with just two minutes in the microwave before giving them a stir, then microwave in bursts of 15 to 30 seconds until you get your desired level of roasty-toasty. Just keep in mind you're not going to get as dramatic a crunch or crisp in the microwave as you would on the stovetop or in the oven. But to me, it's a pretty good exchange for having toasted pecans in just a few minutes.