Who needs an open fire to roast chestnuts? You can do it yourself using your oven! Roasting and peeling chestnuts is a relatively simple process. Homemade roasted chestnuts will fill your home with a wonderful aroma– they smell like the winter holidays!
Did you know that chestnuts are sometimes referred to as the “bread of the mountain”? This is because, unlike other fatty tree nuts, chestnuts are much higher in carbohydrates. In northern Italy, before the arrival of corn, ground chestnuts were a key component in making polenta. In early 19th century America chestnuts were very common; so common, in fact, that farmers would allow their pigs to fatten up by eating the extra chestnuts that had fallen to the forest floor. The high quality lumber produced from chestnut trees was often used in furniture making and construction. During the first half of the 1800s a blight that arrived with Asian-imported trees nearly wiped out the American chestnut. Those trees were eventually replaced with heartier and more resistant chestnut trees, which are the type we see most often today. Chestnuts are now viewed as more of a seasonal holiday luxury. If you’ve ever traveled to New York City, you’ve surely noticed the sweet smell of chestnuts being roasted and sold by street vendors. It’s intoxicating!
If you would rather not go through the work of roasting and peeling your own, you can generally find pre-roasted and shelled chestnuts at major supermarkets and gourmet shops. Keep in mind that roasted chestnuts are best eaten right away, as they mold and spoil fairly quickly. NOTE: edible chestnuts are very different from horse chestnuts (commonly found in back yards), which are terribly bitter and toxic. Only use edible culinary chestnuts for roasting!
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How to Roast and Peel Chestnuts
Ingredients
- 1 pound raw chestnuts, in shell
- sharp knife, pot and strainer, large bowl
NOTES
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. To prepare your chestnuts, grasp them firmly between your thumb and index finger and carefully make a long slice across the rounded top of the chestnut with a sharp serrated bread knife. Careful, the shell is slippery. You should be able to slice it in one motion. If you have trouble cutting through, use gentle sawing motions, don't force the blade down or you run the risk of cutting your hand.
- Be sure to cut all the way through the shell.
- Once all of your chestnuts have been cut, place them into a small saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a simmer.
- Once the water begins to simmer, remove the chestnuts from the water using a mesh strainer or slotted spoon and transfer them to a baking sheet.
- Roast for 15 minutes, or until the shells begin to peel back where you cut into them.
- Remove the chestnuts from the oven. Place them into a bowl and cover with a towel for 15 minutes. Allowing them to steam a bit will make them easier to peel.
- Once the 15 minutes have passed, simply pull on the shell and slip the chestnut out. Some will be easier to peel than others. Both the outer shell and the tough brown skin around the chestnuts should be peeled off. If you run into any nuts that seem gooey or disintegrated inside, it means that they have spoiled. Chestnuts tend to have a short shelf life, spoiled nuts should be tossed.
- Voila! You now have freshly roasted and peeled chestnuts. They're not the easiest things to peel, but these tender, sweet and fragrant nuts are a welcome treat during the winter months.
Nutrition
Excellent!
Still hard to score the shell without cutting off a finger, but the peeling worked perfectly.
This is a really good technique. I love chestnuts but never had the gumption to make them myself. I live in NYC so not too hard to satisfy the craving on the street if necessary. Just a couple of thoughts. First, I bought Chinese-American chestnuts at the green market, and they were a little smaller than regular American chestnuts and of less uniform size. So just reduced the roasting time a little and some are a little more cooked than others…
Also, I of course cut myself the very first time I tried with the serrated knife. But once I thought about what I was actually trying to do, I realized that my kitchen scissors might work too. And they did! Brilliant.
Thanks very much
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I’m so glad I found this, the recipe worked perfectly. No more broken chestnuts while trying to peel them.
Well explained
I’m happy with this recipe
Hi, I just made these chestnuts according to your directions and I want to say thank you. I have never had chestnuts come out so easily and all were wonderful. Thanks again
OMG OMG OMG sad to say that over the last years I’ve eaten less and less of chestnuts. I was tired of year after year of failing to be able to just cook the chestnuts like I’ve done for 40 years. Then I saw this and figured what do I have to lose. Well I lost no chestnuts out of the first batch and going back to store to get more. Thank you so much
What number do you roast them at please?
Hi Vanessa, it’s in the very first instruction – 425 degrees F. Enjoy!
I followed the recipe and Tori’s instructions proved very helpful! The only thing I did differently was to cut an “X” on the chestnut instead of just one slit based on a previous comment. That surely made peeling the chestnuts easier. Of course, the taste and qualtiy of the finished product is also dependent on the freshenss and quality of the raw chestnuts:)
Thanks I bought chesnuts today and ate the 1st one raw, very good reminds me of eating coconut. I’m glad to now know more about them and how to deal with them:)
This is the best way I’ve ever tried in the past 30 years. I was tired of what we called ” chestnut finger”, Awesome
Absolutely agree ‘Chestnut finger’ is now a thing of the past, thankfully
I am going to someone’s house for the holidays and want to bring fresh chestnuts I ordered from the farm but want to make as little work as possible for the host. Can I boil them at home and keep them in the water so all they need to do is roast them and let them steam under the towel? Or better yet can I roast and peel them and bring them unpeeled? And if so how do you reheat them without them drying out? Help!
Almost an year late, but you can reheat them in a microwave oven with a little water recipient next to them to prevent drying. I think the same method can work with a normal oven, but you may need more water in that case, since they heat up slower. Also, for reheating, you don’t need to (although nothing happens if you do) go past 50-60degC (122-140degF) since that’s a temperature that’s already considered hot by the human body.
Thanks, I have recently tried this and love them. I live in Virginia, and local American Chestnuts are once again being sold in small amounts at a local apple orchard. I happen to have a cabin about 2 miles from the Virginia Lesesne Forest which does Chestnut research. I am starting to dig up older recipes for something other than just peel and eat. I also plan to try some combo where I roast for a few, then put in a smoker etc. regards, Scott
Oh and they also sel from Italy a serrated device which is similar to a nut cracker, but designed specifically for (European I assume) chestnuts to perforate the outer shell to prevent exploding and make peeling easier
Not sure what went wrong but… having followed the instructions exactly, about half of my chestnuts exploded in the oven. The remaining chestnuts are absolutely rock hard and impossible to eat. What a shame!
That is a shame! This can happen when the slice you make isn’t deep enough through the shell, it needs to be vented all the way to the nut before roasting. Sorry it didn’t work out better for you!
Thank you for these tips. I’ve roasted chestnuts in the oven lots of times, but they’ve never been as easy to peel as using your method. I found it easier to slit the case using a smooth knife rather than a serrated one, but I don’t expect that matters!
Just a suggestion. Skip the simmering in water part. I think it makes the inner paper shell stick to the nut.
I have three Chinese chestnut trees and have harvested hundreds of chestnuts this year. I use a serrated knife with a 3 inch blade which makes it easy to control. I just made 20 chestnuts which I baked at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. They were very easy to pop out of the shell with no inner paper shell sticking to the nut. Very tasty. My wife is Italian and grew up lovingly to eat chestnuts. Simply baking in the oven is the only way she remembers them.
Thank you for a hundred times. You just solved my problem with chestnut.
An edible chestnut is easiest to spot if it is still in its husk, which is spiny and needle-sharp. The toxic, inedible chestnut, also called the horse chestnut, has a husk that is much smoother, with only a few warts. Horse chestnuts are the ones commonly found in forests and backyards.