When I am in Florida I always buy some boiled peanuts from a roadside vendor. I wanted to try to make my own, so I purchased some raw peanuts and cooked them in some salt water in a crock-pot.
I wound up with boiled peanuts after around ten or twelve hours on low. But something was missing. They weren’t salty tasting.
I’ve since tried more salt in a batch, and I did a batch with some cayenne and old bay seasoning. Every batch has tasted the same, just plain boiled peanuts.
Any ideas?
You have to add an enormous amount of salt to the water. Also, I’d scrap the crockpot and just boil them on the stove. I’ll see if I can dig up my recipe for you.
ETA: While raw peanuts will work okay, you really should buy green (fresh) peanuts.
Thanks! My gf is looking into us planting a small plot of peanuts this spring.
We did this in cub scouts and you have to have raw peanuts or it doesn’t work.
It’s not hard, we did this in the backyard over an open fire
You take five pounds of unshelled green peanuts. (green peanuts just means raw)
You need to soak the peanuts in the shell for an hour.
Then you wash them out again, and then add one cup of salt per one cup of water. Add enough water to cover she shelled peanuts (2 inches over).
Then you boil for three to four hours.
The fresher the peanuts the less time you have to boil them
Once you remove them from the fire let stand for up to one hour. No more than an hour or it’s too salty
You have to eat them right away or refridgerate them as they go bad quickly
“Raw” peanuts are most certainly not the same as “green” peanuts. Raw peanuts have been dried, which is why you have to soak them first. Green peanuts are fresher and have a higher water content, and need to be refrigerated.
Correct green peanuts are not green they are just freshly harvested, we used to use the term raw or green interchangeably.
When you boil peanuts the fresher the better. Either raw or green peanuts work
I had never heard of boiled peanuts until a few years ago. I have seen canned boiled peanuts in the grocery store. What are they like? Are they at all close to what y’all are talking about?
You probably means something like this. I had some years ago, and I didn’t think much of them. Sounds like I might have to retry them. In general, though, as the review said: “Peanuts, salt–what’s not to like?”
I recently had (home-made ) boiled almonds. They’re shelled, but boiled with the brown skin still on. They were pretty good, too.
Like most canned products they aren’t nearly as good as the freshly-boiled variety. It’s been so long since I’ve tried them out of the can, though, so I can’t really speak to how they compare.
We bought some boiled peanuts this weekend in Valrico. Cost $3 for two quarts. These were nice, relatively mild, but they did put some kind of chilis in while boiling them. Might have been Serranos.
1:1 salt to water ratio? No wonder they’re good.
We boil peanuts on the stove occasionally, and it does take a ridiculous amount of salt. Start with what you think is the right amount, and then every couple of hours go and taste a peanut, and add more salt.
They freeze really well - I’ll usually freeze a few single-serving bags. They warm up in the microwave in a couple of minutes, nearly as good as fresh.
That’s too much. It should be about the same proportions as a brine. 1:4 salt to water ratio is a good place to start.
I’ve never seen green, or raw peanuts. Where do they sell them, down south?
The grocery store (Publix is my favorite) in the produce section. Or you can get them at farmers’ markets or roadside produce stands. You can usually get boiled ones at those last two places as well.
Yeah, I don’t know anything else you use raw peanuts for (I don’t know of anybody who roasts their own), so I imagine you can only really find them in places that traditionally eat boiled peanuts.
Damn you all to hell. Where am I going to get some decent bo’led peanuts on a Wednesday night in December.
Wal-Mart don’t got that red kettle thing in the parking lot no more, so I don’t know what to tell you.
That’s what I’m sayin’. 
Last good bo’led peanuts I had was at the ballpark in Greenville before the Braves moved to Mississippi or wherever they went to.
I used to get them at Convenience stores in Florida… Circle K had the best. They always had the “plain” and “spicy”… I liked the spicy. Seems like they had a special heater/pot apparatus that they would dump the peanuts into with water and a premeasured packet to make the brine. They were always very consistent and flavorful and spicy, I really liked the spiced “broth” . I also think it was actually sort of a boiled peanut franchise or vending arrangement with an oputside company at a lot of these gas stations and convenience stores…