How to forage, harvest and roast your own hazelnuts at home! Inspired by the roasted hazelnut dish from Stardew Valley, this recipe for roasted hazelnuts is fun activity for autumn. Enjoy your dried roasted filberts as a sweet nutty snack, or blend them to make a homemade hazelnut butter.

Roasting hazelnuts is super easy and honestly also pretty fun. If you get the chance to pick them yourself, I highly recommend it! It’s the perfect autumn activity.

Hazelnuts (also known as filberts) are generally ready to harvest on the West Coast in September or October, while the hazelnut tree leaves are still green. The perfect timing is when a few nuts have started to fall off the tree, but not too many. If you gather all of your hazelnuts from the ground, there’s a higher chance of local wildlife and insect life having their fair share first.

You want to collect your hazelnuts, then remove any debris, or nuts that have holes in them. Let the nuts dry out, indoors, in a dry place with natural sunlight for 2-4 weeks. An open cardboard box or a mesh bag is perfect for this – you want good ventilation.

Don’t let the hazelnuts dry out in a sealed container, since the chance increases this way that they will probably grow mould. They need air circulation to dry properly. Also, you’ll want to move the nuts around a little bit every few days so that they dry evenly in the sunlight.

After they’re finished drying, the leafy husks will be easy to remove from the nuts. Then they will be ready to roast! Of course the best part of roasting hazelnuts is actually after the roasting, when you get to crack all the shells open. They go flying everywhere but it’s kind of fun. I recommend doing this outside if you can. Go to the park or on your balcony and have a nut cracking picnic.

Also I have to mention it – how cool looking is this pollen-coated spiderweb-covered zinnia I found growing in the garden?!

Roasted Hazelnuts Recipe in Stardew Valley: Three Hazelnuts

Forest foraging in Stardew Valley is one of my favourite things about the game. There’s something very satisfying about running around Cindersap Forest collecting hazelnuts, spring onions, plums, or salmonberries – I must have had close to 999 salmonberries at some point. I took them mining with me since it meant they only accounted for one inventory slot.

For hazelnuts specifically, you’ll have to forage them during the fall season in Stardew Valley.

There’s nothing quite like racing home across Pelican Town at midnight to get into bed before 2am (late night fishing, anyone?) when you stumble across a prized hazelnut in the dark. You have to admit, it’s kind of a charming experience. Plus I love the satisfying popping sound effect when you pick up foraged items in the game.

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Roasted Hazelnuts

These roasted hazelnuts are delicious! You can either buy raw hazelnuts from your local September farmer’s market, buy them at the grocery store, or harvest them yourself from local trees.

Once roasted, keep the nuts in an airtight container in a cool dry place for up to six months.

Ingredients

• raw hazelnuts, that’s all! Either foraged or store bought is fine.

Tools

• pail, bucket, or box
• pruning scissors
• cardboard box, shallow wooden crate, or mesh bags
• baking trays
• baking parchment paper
• oven mitts
• nutcracker tool
• cloths or paper towels
• storage jar

Instructions

1. Harvest the raw hazelnuts.

A trip to the grocery store or local farmer’s market might be the extent of this, but you can also harvest them yourself if you have access to a filbert tree.

Bring a pail or box with you to collect the hazelnuts. You want to harvest them in September or early October, while the tree’s leaves are still green. Check the ground below the tree for loose fallen hazelnuts, and then start collecting them off the tree itself, using pruners as needed.

Keep in mind, you’re only one small creature in this large earth ecosystem, so don’t pick every single nut off every tree. Try to leave some of the tree’s filberts in tact for others. Also don’t pick any nuts that are ridiculously small or have signs of holes in them – someone is likely living in there…

2. Sort and dry the hazelnuts.

After harvesting your raw hazelnuts, you can sort and dry them. If you bought yours from a store or market, you can skip this step and go straight to roasting.

Sort through your hazelnuts for any that have holes or just look terrible. Also you can buff them with a brush to remove dirt, feathers, etc.

Next, lay the hazelnuts out to dry in a low flat box or crate. You might want to put them up on a table or something to prevent mice taking interest while they dry out. You could also hang them in mesh bags – like the ones onions come in at the store. The nuts need to dry out inside your home, in a dry place that gets lots of sunlight. Don’t leave them outside – it’s generally too damp, or animals will take interest in them. Let the nuts dry out for 2-4 weeks, moving them around and rotating them occasionally… like a very slow pan fry!

Once your hazelnuts are dry, they are ready to roast! If you aren’t ready to roast them immediately, just store them in your freezer for later.

3. Roast the hazelnuts.

• When you’re ready to roast your hazelnuts, preheat your oven to 200˚F.
• Lay out some baking sheets lined with baking parchment.
• Remove the husks from the hazelnuts and brush them off once more with a cloth.
• Lay the nuts out on the baking trays and roast for about 45 minutes.

*Make sure to watch the nuts closely while they roast, checking them often. They can burn so quickly!

4. Crack the nuts!

Congratulations! You’ve roasted hazelnuts!

Once they’ve cooled, you can crack them open with your nut cracker of choice. Just beware – cracking them open can be quite a messy experience. I literally had nutshells all over the kitchen, so I’d recommend doing this outside on a picnic blanket, if you can.

I’d also recommend removing the skins from the nuts as well as the shells. The skins should come off easily by rubbing the hazelnuts in a cloth.

Now you can enjoy your hazelnuts. Eat them as is, add to your breakfast, or even make homemade chocolate hazelnut spread! They’ll keep for up to six months in an airtight container stored in a dark cool place.

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Delicious Roasted Hazelnuts

Of course when I roasted my hazelnuts, I immediately created some homemade hazelnut butter with them.

You can make homemade chocolate hazelnut spread too. Can anyone resist homemade Nutella?

I’ll be sharing my recipe for chocolate hazelnut butter on here too – once it’s posted there will be a pinned link to it at the bottom of this recipe. Hope you enjoyed roasting some hazelnuts with me.

Wishing you a very happy start to the autumn season!