My second recipe to try for my eCourses was to soak and dehydrate some raw nuts. From my eCourse, I learned that raw nuts are an awesome source of digestive enzymes, which you can’t get from a pasteurized or roasted nut. Our bodies can create two enzymes: digestive and metabolic, so if we stock up on raw nuts, our bodies don’t have to produce as many digestive enzymes and can focus more on metabolic enzyme production (which can result in better metabolism and healthy weight loss).
However, raw nuts also have phytic acid, which prevents our bodies from absorbing all the nutrients we eat when it is eaten in large quantities or in a poor diet. Soaking helps neutralize the phytic acid and dehydrating dries up the soaked nuts in a way that keeps them still raw (and full of digestive enzymes)!
I decided to try out raw almonds for this recipe as I had just found a good source for truly raw organic almonds. I’m told that most “raw almonds” found in grocery stores aren’t actually raw in California, but rather have been pasteurized, so if anyone is looking for truly raw almonds, please do some homework and research your sources!
This recipe ended up being so easy, everything went smoothly, thank goodness!
First step was to measure out the raw almonds, place them in some mason jars, and add celtic sea salt. The salt actually doesn’t do anything for soaking, but it gives the nuts a yummy salty flavor!
Adding Salt to Almonds
Next, I added pure water to the almonds and salt.
Add Water to the Almonds
This soaking stage is supposed to mimic germination for the nuts, so a warm and wet atmosphere is needed to wake up the nuts back to life, or in other words: sprout. And when the nuts start to sprout/germinate, an enzyme called phytase is released and helps neutralize the enzyme inhibitor, phytic acid. After I added the right amounts of water, I put them in a warm place in my kitchen over night.
Almonds in Salted Water Ready for Soaking
This is what they looked like the next day. You can see that the almonds really have plumped up, and there looks to be extra residue in the water now.
Almonds Soaked Overnight
I drained the almonds in the sink using a sprout screen on my mason jar. Notice how the water is brown and yucky!
Pouring Out the Soaking Water
The phytic acid should all be neutralized now after the soaking process. At this point, I could use these wet almonds and make raw almond milk (which I hope to do one of these days), but I opted to just dry them in my new dehydrator. Here, I’ve laid out the almonds on one of my dehydrator trays.
Wet Almonds Spread Out on Dehydrator Tray
Here are two trays full of soaked almonds ready to dehydrate in my new Excalibur Dehydrator!
Wet Almonds in the Dehydrator
I set the dehydrator to 145° F for about 1-2 hours, then set it back down to 118° F for another 22-23 hours (low temperatures so that the nuts don’t actually cook while they’re drying). And then my almonds were done drying. Delicious crispy raw almonds with a slight saltiness! These guys disappeared real quick, Rene and I really enjoyed them!
Dehydrated Soaked Almonds
Do you have a great recipe for nuts? I love eating these almonds as is, but I want to diversify my cooking knowledge and use these almonds for other recipes, too. Please share your awesome recipes!
