HOW TO PREPARE AND COOK ACORNS

judsoncarroll4

From the Almanac:

HOW TO PREPARE AND COOK ACORNS

A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO PREPARING AND COOKING WITH ACORNS

By The Editors

August 24, 2020

Have you ever wondered if the squirrels might be onto something? In fact, they are! Acorns are extremely nutritious and readily available in nature, making them a healthy addition to many recipes. Here’s how to prepare and cook acorns!

Why acorns? They are incredibly nutritious, offering healthy levels of carbohydrates, protein, and fiber. Surprisingly, they are also a good source of Vitamins A and C.

Plus, they have a wonderful rich, nutty taste. Also, why not? It’s fun to forage and try making something adventurous.

Acorns have been a staple of diets around the world and across cultures, including among some Native Americans.

While most folks use acorns to make a nutrient-rich, nutty-flavored flour, you can also eat acorns as roasted nuts (they are a lot like chestnuts). See more ideas below!

Read more: https://www.almanac.com/how-prepare-and-cook-acorns

dipat2005

@judsoncarroll4 they do look yummy. I have had to give up all nuts because they are irritating my pseudogout.

Ethereal Earth

@judsoncarroll4 Thank you for the information! I plan on gathering many acorns this season and my mother tried making roast acorns last year with little success. Hopefully this year things will turn out better. Would love to make some acorn flour.

LaurieLovesLearning

I have never done this, but have read up on it.

An alternative way to leach the acorns is to put them in your toilet tank (not the bowl, lol). They will get soaked and rinsed multiple times this way, especially if you have lots of family members. If I remember correctly, they left them in there for 3 days.

judsoncarroll4

White oak is the lowish tannin oak that grows around here. I like them. I've never used them very creatively before. Maybe I'll try planting some bur and chestnut oaks and see how they do here. I could definitely see combining leached acorns with chestnuts. Could envision acorns and chestnuts with onion, carrots, turnips, sweet potatoes, etc around a nice roasted critter.... might be even better hot smoked.. like roasted over wood. I wonder if you could do like a tempeh or something similar? I'll have to try out some ferments.

LaurieLovesLearning

In some somewhat local areas here, there is bur oak.

I just remember at my grandparents' & aunts, that they were usually wormy. I remember as a child seeing tiny holes in them & hearing the contents shake inside. The tops can be used for pretty interesting kid's crafts, by the way.

Ethereal Earth

@LaurieLovesLearning The tops make perfect fairy hats! I also like to use acorns when making fall wreathes or centerpieces as nice accents.

As a child I was told acorns were edible so whenever I was outside and got hungry I would smash open a couple for a snack. Definitely preferred wild blueberries in our yard though, much more reward for less work.

LaurieLovesLearning

Well, our acorns in the area are just dropping.

We went to a country park to give the kids a new place to run around, and instead, they went right to work, picking lots of acorns. I said "Hey, look at this!" and they went right to it, as happy as could be.

We plan on trying our hand at processing them.

Our oldest boy picked a bunch as ammunition. 😉

They want to come back again & pick more. 😂

Ferg

I tried to do the acorn meal one year; we had a red oak and a white oak. What we really had was pig food oak. They were all wormy. There's a trick to testing if they are wormy before going to all the trouble of processing them; a friend of mine in NC sorts through all of hers and ends up with about half non-wormy and half lifestock or compost feed. Something about water and floating or not... darn, it's been probably fifteen years since I did it. The white oak is the mildest tasting, though.

after hurricane Isaias came through, the oaks were no longer standing )-:

LaurieLovesLearning

@Ferg We did the float test! The rotten/wormy ones floated. The good ones sank. Edit: see my next post about finding more wormy ones in spite of...

These are now in mesh bags, in the toilet tank, being leached.

So sad to hear about the Oak in your area. :(

LaurieLovesLearning

While picking, I was reminded of a rhyme my grandmother taught me.

"Don't worry if the job is hard & your rewards are few,

Just remember that the mighty oak was once a nut like you!"

OhiohillsLouise

We’ve been blessed with variety of nut trees on our property but I have never tried to use the acorns. Thanks, something new for me to try!

rbusby01

Cool! I'll try it :)

LaurieLovesLearning

Well, we leached and cracked open the nuts. We will roast some tonight.

After many days of soaking & flushing, and heating to dry in the oven, we noticed that some large grubs survived, in some of the acorns that didn't float, with no ill effects. Ew.

We cut all trails out & of course disposed of grubby ones.

That is a lot of work to get to this point.

These smell a little yeasty to us. Does anyone know if that is normal? Did we maybe we left them too long in the water? We have a second round on the go & will leave them in one less day.

judsoncarroll4

https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/comment/873625#Comment_873625

No, that is normal. It is, indeed yeast.... just a bit of ferment. Roasting will kill it off, but not before it improves the flavor and digestibility.

LaurieLovesLearning

@judsoncarroll4 Well then, we're good to go!