Can You Eat Pumpkin Seeds with Their Shells?

Whether you eat pumpkin seeds with or without the shell depends on one hand on your taste and on the other hand on the variety – you should definitely watch your teeth when eating the hard shell. It tends to make more sense to peel the seeds. While eating pumpkin seeds in their shells isn’t harmful to your health, it often doesn’t taste very good. On the one hand, this is due to the hard shell, which you only need to bite through with force. In addition, the shell is a bit strawy. For some varieties more, for others less. However, you do not have to laboriously peel the pumpkin seeds in advance. For example, you can eat roasted pumpkin seeds with their skin on, so to speak, by holding them between your teeth with the pointed side pointing towards your mouth. Then bite a hole in the thickest part and scoop out the inside. In this way, you can also eat Turkish pumpkin seeds with their shells, for example. Roasted pumpkin seeds are more aromatic, but raw pumpkin seeds contain even more valuable ingredients. If you are more concerned with the pulp, we will tell you which pumpkins are edible.

Note: Ornamental gourds are poisonous and must not be eaten in any form! But the same applies to edible pumpkins (from the garden): If the pumpkin tastes bitter, it should not be eaten! In this case, it contains the poisonous cucurbitacin. The same goes for zucchini!

Eat pumpkin seeds with or without the shell?

As I said, you are not harming your health if you eat pumpkin seeds with their skins on. However, you can increase the enjoyment by laying out the kernels next to each other on a board covered with baking paper and rolling them over them with a rolling pin while applying gentle pressure. This is how the shell cracks open. However, you can also eat Hokkaido pumpkin seeds with their shells. You should definitely remove the outer skin if you want to try our recipe for pumpkin seed pesto. To do this, combine the nutritious seeds with garlic, basil, grated hard cheese, and olive oil. In addition, we have compiled all information about pumpkins for you.