Spiced Candied Pecans on Roasted Broccoli – Year Round Side Dish Recipe
Sometimes coming up with a tasty side dish recipe is a little bit challenging. At other times you just want to dress up a standard like roasted broccoli. An easy way to do that is to add some nuts. If you want to keep things simple you can just chop up some peanuts or cashews and mix them in but if you want to take it to the next level try this recipe for spiced candied pecans on roasted broccoli. Of course there is nothing stopping you from using other nuts like peanuts, cashews or walnuts. Any of them would taste good. Not to mention the fact that the candied spiced nuts make a delicious snack all on their own.
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Spiced Candied Pecans on Roasted Broccoli – Side Dish Recipe
serves 2
- 1/2 cup pecan halves
- 1/8 cup granulated sugar
- 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/8 tsp ground coriander
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp fresh ground pepper
- sea salt
- 2 cups roasted broccoli*
*To roast broccoli preheat your oven to 350°. Place your florets into a baking dish and sprinkle with a bit of olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and roast for about 20 minutes until the broccoli is just turning brown.
- While the broccoli is roasting make the candied nuts.
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- Mix the sugar, spices and salt and pepper in a bowl.
- Heat a pan over med-high heat and add the pecan halves. Toast them to bring out their flavor.
- Just as the nuts start turning dark add the sugar mixture.
- STIR, STIR, STIR until all the nuts are coated and the sugar melts completely and turns a dark caramel brown color.
- Remove the nuts to a silpat mat (or parchment paper) on a cookie sheet to cool. Lightly sprinkle them with sea salt.
- When cooled chop the nuts and sprinkle over the roasted broccoli.
How Was the Side Dish Recipe?
This was an utterly delicious combination. The spicy/sweet and crunchy nuts with the earthy, roasted broccoli was wonderful! Adding the nuts turned the ordinary side dish into something really special. I can see them also working with green beans, cauliflower and asparagus.
These nuts would also make a delicious snack all on their own. Obviously for that you would have to make them in a much larger quantity. They are really a taste treat.
Other used for Candied Pecans
What else could you do with these spiced, candied pecans? There are a number of possibilities! You could toss them in a spinach salad to add some spicy crunch. If you changed the spice blend around they would be wonderful added to cookies for an unexpected taste treat.
There would be nothing wrong with adding them to stir fried rice after chopping them up a bit. I think the surprise of the spicy sweetness in that famous rice dish would be wonderful. Or use them as a topping for oatmeal. I can already taste how good that would be.
Can you Candy other Nuts?
Yes! I have used a similar recipe to candy cashews. Obviously walnuts would work well. I can see it being tasty on peanuts. Although with peanuts you would really have to make peanut clusters or something akin to peanut brittle.
Hazelnuts are not a big favorite for me so I don’t know how they would taste this way – perhaps someone who likes them can try it and see. All one can do is try and see how it comes out.
