Candied Pecans

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: candied nuts, Candied Pecans, Glazed Pecans

Prep Time: 3

Cook Time: 10

Servings: servings

Calories: 296kcal

Author: Colleen Kennedy

How to make Candied Pecans that taste like NYC or theme park vendors. Warm, crunchy, fragrant AMAZING candied nuts!

Print Recipe

Ingredients

⅓ cup water plus 1 TBS
1 TBS vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups whole pecans
¼ cup Spiced sugar or cinnamon sugar (see notes)

Instructions

Add the water, 1 cup of the sugar and vanilla to a heavy bottom saucepan or skillet with sides. Use a larger pot/pan then you think you'll need.
Bring sugar, water and vanilla to a boil over medium-high heat.
Once boiling, add in the pecans and stir almost CONSTANTLY until the water is boiled away.
The sugar will begin to dry out a little and start to stick to the pecans, almost like a dusty white. Keep stirring them around, so that the nuts don’t have a chance to burn on the bottom of the pan. If things get dicey, remove from heat and keep stirring until it cools a bit (heat conductivity of pans and stoves will vary)
One the pecans begin looking dry, turn the heat under the pan to medium-low, to keep the sugar from browning too fast. Keep stirring until the almonds start to get a little shiny in spots, like they are wet.
You are getting a serious arm workout making these – but its all good! It means you can eat extra!!
Remove your pan from the heat for a minute, add in the ¼ cup of spiced sugar (recipe in notes) . Keep stirring.
At this point, there might be some noise coming from your pan. Some crackling and popping, but hopefully not to much. It depends on how fresh your nuts were. Really fresh nuts may make a popping noise. That’s the water escaping. If the nuts are older, that will not really happen.
Keep stirring until the pecans are a little shiny in spots, but still a bit lumpy and coated.
The best ones are the ones that are shiny in some areas with some delicious lumps of cinnamon sugar on other parts of the nut. As soon as you see that happening, take them off the heat and transfer the pecans to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Spread them apart, but don’t worry about some of them sticking together initially.
BE CAREFUL, however. These are extremely hot, so use a spoon. The coating on the pecans will harden up as they cool.

Notes

Click here for my Spiced Sugar recipe.

To make your own spiced sugar to put on many things, excellent in a variety of baked goods. Combine 1 ½ cups of sugar with 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1 TBS cinnamon and 1 vanilla bean. Slice vanilla bean down the full length and scrape out the seeds. Shake in a jar or stir until fully combined. You can also choose to add in ½ teaspoon or so of nutmeg,

Nutrition