I shared a photo the other day on Facebook of my new favorite snack I whipped up — crispy walnuts covered in homemade caramel sauce and sprinkled with sea salt. This is so simple, I wasn’t even planning on posting a recipe for it, but since several readers asked, here it is!
The Nuts
You can use any kind of nut you like, really, but they should ideally be soaked and dried crispy. I showed how I did this with my walnuts in this post.
Nuts, like grains and other seeds, have anti-nutrients that block absorption of minerals and can inhibit digestion. Thankfully, neutralizing these icky anti-nutrients is easy — you just have to soak the nuts in salt water overnight, then dehydrate them in an oven or other dehydration system. I’d kill for one of these awesome dehydrators, but my little hippie home is powered by the sun and a dehydrator would suck up too much energy. Bummer!
The Caramel
I said this was easy, and I really wasn’t kidding. Are you ready for this? Two ingredients.
Butter.
Honey.
And we’re not getting all fancy here with a candy thermometer or anything. None of that “hard-crack,” “soft-crack,” whatever-crack nonsense for this simple caramel. Put equal amounts of the butter and honey into a small pot and simmer for several minutes until the sauce gets thickened, bubbly, a little darker in color, and starts smelling like caramel. People like different levels of doneness when it comes to caramel sauce, so cook it according to your tastes.
Then, drizzle the caramely goodness all up in your nuts! Your… your walnuts, that is. Or pecans, those would be delicious.
If you have extra sauce, pour it onto a plate and put it into the fridge to cool and then break into chunks. Now you have caramel candy, too!
The Salt
I hope you know by now, faithful readers, that you should only be using real salt — not that stark-white chemical junk. And you shouldn’t be afraid of it either. Salt is good. (Learn more about good sea salt here.)
Oh by the way, that giant bag of Redmond’s salt pictured, I got from Vitacost, where it’s less than half the price it is in stores and on Amazon. If you’ve never shopped at Vitacost before, click here for a $10 coupon (also provides me with a coupon, so I can, you know, afford to eat and stuff). I get my salt, coconut oil, coconut flour, and just about every dry pantry item I need from there, plus lots of other things. I can’t say enough good things about that store.
Sprinkle that delicious salt onto the nuts as you stir in the caramel sauce.
And That’s It.
That’s my magic caramel nut recipe! It’s GAPS-legal, and a relatively healthy little treat. Enjoy!
Gee Whiz! This should have been labeled “FOOD PORN” 🙂 LOL
LOL!!
I couldn’t have said it better!
Looks delicious. Love the simplicity of it too! I’m pinning 😉 Have a lovely weekend!
Yay! Thanks Heba, you too!
Your recipe reminds me of a Georgian (Russia, not US state) traditional sweet for them was to string up walnuts and grapes and dip them in, I think, honey and something else, over the nuts and grapes and do subsequent dipping over a period of time until the grapes are dried and the walnuts and grapes and coated with this yummy, crackly sweet coating.
Ooh… that sounds amazing! I made the caramel again last night and let it cook a little longer, so it ended up turning into crunchy toffee. I want to make a string of nuts and grapes dipped into that! You could wear it as a necklace, you know like those nasty little candy ones kids wear at Halloween? Hahaha.
OMG!
Hahaha! The power of the caramel has rendered Molly speechless. LOL.
Hey, just want you to know that I saw your $10 credit on here for Vitacost, placed an order and received it today. Thanks for that! I hope that you enjoyed your $10 credit too! 🙂
Thanks so much, Jesse! That’s awesome! You can refer other people too and earn more coupons. Try sharing it on your facebook profile — I’ve heard of people doing that and getting enough friends to sign up that it pays for a whole order!
Great idea! 🙂
so glad you shared this! I was one of those on FB asking for a recipe! This looks yummy yummy! 🙂
is this a online store?
Huh?
I have a hippy solar powered home too. Had to sell my 10 tray excalibur dehydrator, sigh. Looking to build a solar dehydrator soon.
Not really GAPS legal with the butter, correct? I thought butter wasn’t allowed. Do you know if Ghee would work?
Butter is allowed on the full GAPS diet. I did try it with ghee before, and if I remember correctly, it didn’t mix well or turn into caramel. Not sure why that would be!
Oh my goodness. I made this at home with the handful of pecans that I had left, and it was like crack. Good thing I was short on ingredients! Love it. Plan to share your link ASAP!!
I love the way you write; like a real person! Thank you for that.
which honey did you use?
thank you!
I like this kind: http://amzn.to/OfkCy7
I made these today and ate them with my homemade ice cream! Yummy!!
I have a real problem with heating honey to simmer. Raw honey is a marvelous food but many of the good qualities are destroyed by “high heat”. You don’t mention what kind of honey. If it’s the normal store honey its not healthy and is just another processed food. UGH!! You can make wonderful healthy snacks by just warming the honey and mixing things in. Try it sometime!!
Ok, your directions are equal amounts of honey and butter. Does that mean if I use one stick of butter (which is 1/4 cup), I would use 1/4 cup honey?
Anyone know the magic number of minutes to boil for a good set. Don’t want to break a tooth on them. :~D I did some no bake cookies that used sugar for a little over a minute and they set up, but probably not enough for the nuts. Didn’t know if the honey would be different. Thanks!