Oven-Roasted Chestnuts

Roasted chestnuts are great to eat on their own (try not to!), and can be added into dishes like stir fry, stew, salad, or pasta, or blitzed to make chestnut cream or soup. There are a lot of ways to roast chestnuts, and “over an open fire” is not always the most practical. Below are a few approaches for roasting chestnuts in an oven.

Before Cooking:

For best results, please visit the Chestnuts How-To page for much more detail on pre-cooking prep steps.

  1. Air cure: For best flavor, air cure the chestnuts for 2-3 days.

  2. Score: Score or crack your cured chestnuts by method of your choice.

  3. Blanch: Pour boiling water over the nuts and let them sit for 10-15 minutes.

Scored chestnuts blanching before being roasted. Photo by Serafina LoGiacco

Quick Roast

A fast, classic way to do it. Results in good caramelization, but sometimes yields a dry-ish interior texture (depends on your taste and varies chestnut to chestnut — every chestnut is different).

  1. Pre-heat an oven to 425-450° F.

  2. Score or crack your cured chestnuts by method of your choice.

  3. On a baking tray or pan, roast the chestnuts for 10-20 minutes, to your taste. Larger chestnuts will take longer to cook.

  4. Let the chestnuts cool to the point you can comfortably handle them, and then shell them immediately.

“Reverse Sear”

This approach cooks chestnuts more slowly — resulting in a softer texture, with a still caramelized exterior. Initially based on a slow-cooking approach by James “Mike” Nave (he describes it as the “brisket of chestnuts”), improved upon by Sasha Sherman of the Great Chestnut Experiment, and further improved by the Breadtree team. This is how we are roasting chestnuts at our markets in 2025.

  1. Pre-heat an oven to 350° F convection, or 375° F non-convection.

  2. Transfer nuts to a baking tray or pan. Add about 1/3 cup of water per tray. Roast nuts for 35 minutes (increase to 50 minutes for nuts that have not been air cured).

  3. Increase temp to 450-500° F for 10 minutes to caramelize the surface (increase to 15 minutes for nuts that have not been air cured).

  4. Let the chestnuts cool to the point you can comfortably handle them, and then shell them immediately.