Spicy Wine Nuts

This is Rachel - Excited to share this recipe for spiced nuts with you just in time for Friday happy hour.  These spiced nuts go so incredibly well with wine.  From the first bite, I couldn't believe how much they improved the flavor experience of the inexpensive wine I was drinking.  If you're anything like us, you drink some cheap but good value wines on the regular days and save the nice bottles for special occasions.

Anyway, we've found some awesome value wine in our searches but that will be another blog post. When you enjoy the right snack with your house wine it can really make a huge difference and open up the flavors. You might forget that it isn't actually a special occasion.  If that happens though, it means it kind of is!

I always have a rendition of these nuts on hand and have a lot of fun playing with different spices in the basic recipe.  I made huge quantities at Christmas and gave them to friends with a bottle of wine.  They needed to experience the magical combination for themselves.  We consume a lot of these around our house.  So nice that its such an easy recipe too.

SPICY WINE NUTS

3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons dried rosemary crumbled
1 1/2 teaspoon nice sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
2 cups raw walnuts or other favorite nut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and stir in the spices.  Stir in the nuts and coat evenly.  Pour the mixture out onto a cookie sheet and roast in the center of the oven for about 10 minutes. Delicious served a bit warm.  And if you bring in some fancy medjool dates and dark chocolate to the party with your wine and nuts, you'll be loving life.

Salted or unsalted butter both work fine here.  If you have fresh rosemary you can use that, but use just 1 teaspoon.  The best rosemary I used for this was some fresh I had left on the counter to dry for about a week. It still smelled a bit fresh when crumbled. If you have smoked paprika but not cayenne, try that!  If the butter browns on the stove you can still work with it.  It will add a different complexity to the flavors. Taste and alter the amounts of things to how you prefer them.  If you use peanuts, they will cook faster so try about 7 minutes for them.  Hope you enjoy!

Some of the variations I have used...

Almonds with butter, garam masala, cayenne and sea salt

Peanuts with butter, piment d'espelette, thyme, sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Peanuts with browned butter, cayenne, sea salt and fresh ground pepper