Butter-Baked Candied Walnuts

The scent of cinnamon-spiced nuts filling my kitchen is the clearest signal that the holidays are approaching. We’ve shared recipes for candied pecans, candied cashews, and a fun spiced nut mix from the one and only Dorie Greenspan, but this time I’m playing around with walnuts, giving them a buttery, spiced glaze.

Candy-coated walnuts do it all: They’re the perfect last-minute gift, a great make-ahead appetizer, and are fun to have around for snack time and for making lunchtime salads more fun. The best part is that they are incredibly easy to make, with just walnuts, sugar, spices, egg white, and butter.

This recipe comes together with a mix of simple ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen.

• Walnuts
• Granulated sugar
• Cinnamon
• Egg white
• Unsalted butter
• Kosher salt
• Vanilla extract

In this recipe, you use egg whites to help the sugar and spice adhere to the nuts, then you bake them in butter to take them to an entirely new level. Melting the butter directly on the baking sheet creates a slick, no-stick surface to bake the sugar-encrusted nuts. The butter sizzles into the candy coating, creating a crunchy, buttery crust.

Candied walnuts are a great homemade gift to give around the holidays, but they’re also a fun thing to keep in your rotation year-round. Instead of adding plain walnuts, fold these candied nuts into banana bread or muffin batter, or add a pile of candied walnuts to a grazing board spread. The sweet and salty nuts pair nicely with hearty greens, sliced apples or pears, and crumbled blue cheese. They also make a bowl of vanilla ice cream a lot more fun.

Once the candied walnuts are completely cool, store them in a cool, dry place, like the pantry, where they will last for a week. The refrigerator may seem like the perfect place to extend the shelf life of these nuts, but the moist environment will make the crunchy candied walnuts soft and chewy.