Candied Pecans
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This candied pecans recipe is an absolute must for the holidays! Sweet, salty, and crunchy nuts are perfect for serving with cocktails and appetizers, topping salads, or just snacking by the handful.
Photo by Alexandra Grablewski (Chronicle Books, 2018)
These sweet, spicy, and salty candied pecans are madly delicious. They’re perfect for serving with cocktails or just keeping on hand as a snack during the holidays. They also make a fabulous homemade gift, and the simple ingredients come together in just minutes. Pair them with a cheese board for a delightful pop of sweet flavor and crunch, or use them to jazz up roasted vegetables, salads, or grain bowls. They’re almost like candy but packed with protein, so you can totally justify grabbing a handful (or two!). The best part? You only need four ingredients and 15 minutes to make them. What are you waiting for?
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. Do not substitute granulated sugar or brown sugar.
- Kosher salt: Balances the sweetness of the sugar.
- Cayenne pepper: Provides a subtle kick. While the candied nuts aren’t spicy at all, you can omit the cayenne or replace it with ground cinnamon if you prefer. If you want to up the heat, you can add a little more cayenne to the glaze mixture.
- Water: Mixed with the sugar and seasonings, helps create a syrupy consistency to coat the pecans evenly.
- Pecan Halves: Pecans make wonderful candied nuts because their crevices absorb the flavorful glaze during baking. While smooth nuts like almonds and cashews can work, walnuts make the best alternative to pecans.
- Jump to the printable recipe for precise measurements
Step-By-Step Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and set an oven rack in the middle position. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Combine 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 to stops the nuts from cooking.
When the nuts are completely cool, use your hands to break them apart. Transfer the nuts to a bowl and serve.
The nuts will keep nicely for a few weeks stored in an airtight container at room temperature.
Video Tutorial
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Candied Pecans
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 (175°C) 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.
Notes
Nutrition Information
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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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!