De-salting nuts?
 

I have cut out most added salt to my diet and as a result, my tastebuds have changed. Yesterday, I was at Costco looking for nuts and I decided to buy a mixed nut assortment that is salted. I figured I'd either eat them as they are or try to remove some of the salt. Well one taste and I knew the mixture was way too salty for me.

So I rinsed the nuts in a collander.
I laid the nuts flat out to dry on some paper towels.
Since the nuts were still a little damp, I tried using the oven to dry them out a little. I wasn't sure exactly what to do because the nuts were already roasted, I didn't want to burn them. So I did a little trial and error at a low oven temperature. I think I was successful but it was kind of cludgy.

Has anyone ever de-salted nuts? Is there a better method to doing it?

Hi Nelie -

I've never tried to "de-salt" nuts. However, you can buy several different kinds of unsalted nuts at Whole Foods.

I've done this before, but I usually only wash a handful of them - just what I plan on eating. That way they don't sit around and get soggy and watery. I've also de-cheesed Doritos before. Yeah, yeah, yeah...I should have just bought corn tortilla chips, but I wanted Doritos at the time. It was before I was on a diet, so the de-cheesing wasn't for health purposes. It was just because I didn't like the massive amounts of cheese powder they put on those things. Eww. Soggy Doritos aren't much fun.

BreakingFree, I was trying to be cheap :) 2.5 lbs of mixed nuts (no peanuts) was 10 dollars. I usually buy Costco's unsalted walnuts but they were out. I also have a korean grocery store near me that sells unroasted unsalted shelled peanuts for really cheap and I roast those in the oven. I like the nut mixture because it has a variety including brazil nuts which are pretty expensive nuts.

Yes, buy unsalted nuts ;)

I like saoked nuts better than dry. I wash them and soak them for an hour or two or more as u like until they swell and they taste so good like that! Almonds soaked overnight are my fav.

This is only kind-of related, but I've heard that roasted nuts are entirely different nutritionally than nonroasted, at least in the case of almonds. I guess making almond milk with a roasted and unroasted nut will demonstrate the difference, as it does something to the fats. This was information I'd heard from a nutritionist (Deanna Latson) recently. I suppose it's true in the sense that a whole food is a preferably unprocessed one, and that roasting a nut would process it.

I don't know about almonds but in some instances cooking foods makes the nutrients more bioavailable. I wouldn't necessarily say that cooking something makes it processed although raw foodists would disagree :)

Raw unsalted nuts are the best nutritionally, then roasted unsalted, and finally the roasted salted. Of course, the ones with sugar are entirely out.