Sweet & Spicy Paleo Roasted Almonds

I love flavor combinations - salt and vinegar, cashew and vanilla, strawberry and banana, sweet and spicy!  If you spent much time at my dinner table, you would know that my go-to, "I want the entire family to eat and rave" combination is cayenne and raw honey.  I use it in my sweet potato casserole, my Korean BBQ-style pulled pork, in many of my throw-together glazes for grilled chicken, in many a mason jar salad dressing and almost every time I toss fruit on the grill (pineapple just screams for a touch of honey and a sprinkling of cayenne or chipolte!)

Anyway, when I was playing with recipes for roasted almonds - no one around here was surprised when the Sweet and Spicy ended up being my favorite!

We have teenagers - ACTIVE teenagers, BUSY teenagers, NOT-AS-COMMITTED-TO-STRICT-PALEO-EATING teenagers!  If I don't keep some convenient, healthy, clean-eating snacks at the ready - they are happy to suggest a trip to a convenience store for some kind of junk.  We have worked far too hard to get healthy for me to let that happen.

Besides, I love a snack.  Something that makes me feel spoiled or like I'm eating something really fancy or expensive or gourmet.  Something I can grab when I realize I've lost myself in a recipe or saucepan or blog post and am almost late for an entire afternoon and evening of running and dropping off and meetings and practices and errands and it's a LONG time until dinner and I'm starving!  (like yesterday....oh my goodness!)

So, last week, inspired by a really good sale on raw almonds in the bulk food section, I decided to play around with some different 'sauces' to roast them in.  I pan-roasted (too much work and not as satisfying of a texture in my opinion) and I oven roasted.  I did smoky (NOT a hit with my kids), I did spicy (a little too intense for my tastes), I did sweet (it was such a specific taste and gave us sugar overload) and Sweet and Spicy (the winner!).

It was easy - it dirtied a saucepan, a sheet pan and a rubber spatula and it took less than an hour from very start (meaning I hadn't gotten anything out of the pantry yet) to the very finish...I let mine cool a bit longer before I put them in containers, but really, how much work is cooling?  And if you only have an hour, you can definitely go ahead and store them.  Or just toss a clean, dry dish towel over the top and store them in an airtight container later.  For these almonds...you can make it work!

Now, during the actual 35 minutes of cooking (saucepan and oven-roasting), you do have to stay present.  Stirring turned out to be key in making sure the almonds absorbed all the flavors while they were roasting.

Here's how I did it....

Sweet & Spicy Paleo Roasted Almonds
 
Ingredients
4 cups of raw almonds
for the sauce...
1/4 cup Cholula
2 T raw honey
1 1/2 t sugar-free fish sauce (anchovy based)
1 1/2 t coconut aminos
1 t garlic powder
1 t onion powder
1 t cayenne powder
1 T sea salt
1 t dry mustard
for the sprinkle...
1 1/2 t sea salt
1 1/2 t coconut or maple sugar
1 t garlic powder (optional)

Preheat the oven to 325°

Combine the sauce ingredients in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring until combined and heated through (about 5-7 minutes) 

 Place almonds in a large metal or glass bowl, pour sauce mixture over and stir to coat completely.
 

 Pour the almonds onto a parchment-line, rimmed baking sheet and roast in the oven for 25-30 minutes.  You will need to stir the mixture every 5-7 minutes to make sure the sauce gets soaked up evenly during the roasting process.

Remove from oven, sprinkle immediately with sea salt, coconut sugar, garlic powder mixture

Let cool and store in an airtight container

As with any recipe - play with it!  You can make it spicier with additional cayenne or sweeter with a little more honey or smokier with some liquid smoke or cumin.  Don't like honey?  Substitute Grade B organic maple syrup.  Don't love almonds?  I bet this would work with walnuts or pecans! 

Have some fun in your kitchen - even the recipes that weren't the ultimate 'winner' in this roasted almond recipe test, were still pretty tasty and made it into lunchboxes and some gift packs for friends and disappeared from the container in my pantry!  Not a single almond wasted and absolutely NO reason to stop at the local gas station for a junk-snack. 

Why not stock your pantry with some of these Sweet & Spicy Roasted Almonds?   I hope you enjoy these as much as we did!