Hickory Smoked Nuts

Last Updated on March 8, 2023 by What’s Smoking

This recipe for hickory smoked nuts is a great combination of sweet and spicy. Smoking nuts is a fantastic addition for your holiday parties or if you are looking for an easy snack at any other point during the year. It is also cheap and fast to put together, it is hard to complain about those two factors. Let start taking a look at this smoked nuts recipe, as these hickory smoked nuts will not disappoint.

Smoked Hickory Nuts Recipe

This is a great combination of some spice and sweetness, along with the smoky flavor of hickory. First you thing you will want to do is get your smoker going. I did this on my Weber Kettle, using some B&B char-logs and one chunk of hickory wood on top of the grate. Regardless of what you have, this smoked nuts recipe should translate well onto a Traeger or other style smoker. You will want to get your smoker temperature up to 250° before throwing the nuts on. So let’s take a look at what ingredients we will be using for this recipe of smoked mixed nuts.

1. 3 tbsp. of sugar
2. 3 tbsp. of brown sugar
3. 1 tbsp. of salt (only if you are using unsalted nuts)
4. 3/4 teaspoon of garlic powder
5. 3/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
6. 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon powder
7. 1/2 teaspoon of paprika

Get all that mixed into a bowl and set it off to the side.

Prepping Smoked Mixed Nuts Recipe

For this recipe I used a 40 oz. container of mixed nuts from Costco. When making this recipe I am only calling for 1 pound of nuts. Please adjust accordingly if you were to use an entire 40 oz. container. Now the one important thing to talk about here is the nuts you are using. Many times you are going to get mixed nuts that are already salted. If you do, do not add the salt to the mix.

If you are using salted nuts and add the additional salt, instead of Hickory Smoked Nuts, this recipe will more likely be titled Hickory Smoked Salt Lick. You will have too much salt if you add salt to already salted nuts. Try to get unsalted if you can, gives you more control over the flavor.

With that part of it addressed let move on. Our next step is going to be to melt 1/2 a stick of butter to coat the nuts. I have a large metal bowl perfect for mixing ingredients together on recipes like this. I placed all the nuts in the bowl and slowly poured the melted butter on the mixed nuts. I would stir the nuts with the butter and then add some more ensuring I covered all the nuts with the butter. Once you have the butter on there start adding the spices to the nuts.

Briefly on the butter, I used salted butter for this. It is worth taking into consideration that if you are using salted nuts you may want to think about using unsalted butter. It’s not a lot of butter we are using here but you are only adding more salt content if you are making this recipe with salted nuts.

Do the same thing as we did with the butter, add some spices, stir, add some more spices. You want to ensure you are getting them all covered. After you have the nuts covered, I transferred it all over to a foil tray that I will be putting on the Kettle. The tray makes for easy transfer on and off the smoker and will still allow plenty of smoke to get on the nuts. By the time you are done coating the nuts with the butter and spices, your smoker should be at or near that 250° temperature and you can go ahead and place the tray on the smoker.

Time To Smoke

Now that you have them on the smoker you will not need to do much. You are going to smoke these for about an hour and fifteen minutes, all in. At the approximate half way mark you will give it a stir so that anything on the bottom gets some of the smoke flavor. After you get that hour and fifteen minutes, you can pull them. When you do pull, the nuts will feel a bit soft but they will harden back up for you. Give them a few minutes to cool completely down but once they do go ahead and start to enjoy these hickory smoked nuts.

These make for the perfect holiday snack, maybe even a gift around the holidays or for the random summer BBQ. No matter when you make these, the cayenne pepper gives it that little bit of spice and the sugar and cinnamon gives it that sweet flavor. These hickory smoked nuts are sure to be a crowd pleaser. If you have any hickory smoked nuts leftover, ensure to store in an airtight container.

Thanks for being here and checking out this Hickory Smoked Nuts recipe. I hope you enjoy it! We always appreciate comments, 5 star recipe rating and social media shares. As always, keep that smoke rolling!

If you are looking for some other recipe suggestions, take a look below:

• Smoked Cinnamon Sugar Almonds
• Roasted Chestnut Recipe
• Smoked Pumpkin Seeds
• Hickory Smoked Almonds
• Spicy Smoked Chex Mix

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