How can I make salt adhere to my macadamias?

March 9, 2009 6:26 PM

I love Macadamias as a snack every now and then. I'd prefer to buy the natural, non-roasted macadamias from the health food aisle, but these don't come salted, and I like a little salt with my macadamias. How can I salt them myself, and more importantly, how can I make the salt adhere to the macadamias without using any oil? I want to avoid making the nuts any fattier than they already are.
posted by Effigy2000 to Food & Drink (13 answers total)

Sprinkle them with salt water and dry them in the oven.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:28 PM on March 9, 2009

Response by poster: Daily Alice: "Sprinkle them with salt water and dry them in the oven."

I did try soaking them for a short while in a brine mixture I made up, but let them air dry; it didn't take. Would doing the same but putting them in the oven make a difference?
posted by Effigy2000 at 6:30 PM on March 9, 2009

When I was struggling to get salt to stick to my homemade popcorn, I finally realized that a big part of the problem was that the salt itself was too coarse. You can buy so-called popcorn salt that has very fine crystals (smaller than table salt) made especially to stick better to the dry surface, but generally just grind up some kosher salt in my mortar and pestle until it's a fine powder. Even if you don't want to toast the nuts (even though that sounds tasty to me) I'd probably heat them in the oven briefly to warm the oil that's already on the surface and then toss them with the very fine salt.
posted by mostlymartha at 6:37 PM on March 9, 2009 [2 favorites]

Buy sea salt and grind it to a fine dust with a pestle and mortar. After that it is simply a case of tossing the nuts in the powder.
posted by fire&wings at 6:51 PM on March 9, 2009

You don't like them roasted -- I see that -- but I think if you toasted them very briefly, you could get enough of their natural oils to come out, without cooking them, that a sprinkling of salt would easily adhere to them. Myself, I'd do it in the toaster oven at ~350 until they were just hot to the touch -- 5 minutes or so.
posted by mudpuppie at 7:52 PM on March 9, 2009

You could crush them a bit into pieces and bring some of the natural oils out that way. Use popcorn salt for best adherence.
posted by cmgonzalez at 8:21 PM on March 9, 2009

Seconding what fire&wings says--that's exactly what I do with roasted pumpkin seeds.
posted by gimonca at 8:34 PM on March 9, 2009

As opposed to brining, what if you got a water mister bottle and gave the nuts a very light misting - not much at all. Then sprinkle the salt on them. I bet it would stick then. And you could leave them out just a bit for that to evaporate. Wham-o salty nuts. Never tried it but it sounds like it could work.
posted by Askr at 9:34 PM on March 9, 2009

As a very lazy person, I will point out that you can make superfine salt by taking normal salt and running it through a blender, a coffee grinder, a spice grinder, or a food processor. This is how I make my popcorn salt, since I don't like buying pounds of the stuff at a grocery store.
posted by saeculorum at 9:45 PM on March 9, 2009

Popcorn salt or other fine powdery salts should be available at your friendly local supermarket and will stick
posted by scose at 1:22 AM on March 10, 2009

1/8 teaspoon salt, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 teaspoon flour - pour into mist sprayer bought specifically for this purpose, spray on bowl of nuts, toss lightly, toast in medium heated oven for 10 minutes, turn off heat, check, toss over, let stay in oven till cool. The flour is the secret.
posted by watercarrier at 4:55 AM on March 10, 2009

Response by poster: mostlymartha: "When I was struggling to get salt to stick to my homemade popcorn, I finally realized that a big part of the problem was that the salt itself was too coarse. You can buy so-called popcorn salt that has very fine crystals (smaller than table salt) made especially to stick better to the dry surface, but generally just grind up some kosher salt in my mortar and pestle until it's a fine powder."

Out of all the answers here this is the only one I've not tried. I tried a few others but they didn't really work (but tank you anyway!). But mostlymartha, I've looked for popcorn salt in the supermarket and can't find anything with that name. Where do you get yours?
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:13 PM on May 22, 2009

It's also called pickling salt.
posted by stavrogin at 2:16 PM on November 19, 2009