I’m ranking them for snacking, but you can rank them however you want, and you can include any nuts you want:
Pistachios – the king of snacking nuts, IMO. The most flavorful and unusual.
Almonds – the best texture by far, IMO – very very crunchy, paired with a nice (if low-key) flavor.
Peanuts and cashews – versatile and pleasant, but nothing exciting.
Brazilnuts – not much flavor, to me.
Pecans – not my favorite for snacking, but wonderful in pastries and pies.
Walnuts – too bitter. I don’t like them at all.
Honey roasted cashews, then honey roasted peanuts, then pistachios (they lose points because I’m lazy and don’t like taking them out of the shells, at least they seem to have stopped making them red).
Cashews
Cocktail peanuts
Salted in the shell peanuts
Spanish peanuts
dry roasted peanuts
honey roasted peanuts
hazelnuts (or filberts)
pistachios
Pecans
unsalted peanuts
Walnuts
all those other blah nuts like almonds, Brazil nuts, and boiled peanuts
Almonds, plain or flavored
Cocktail peanuts
Walnuts, either in cookies or mixed with sweet raisins
Cashews in moderation, same with macadamias
Filberts
The rest of the can.
That is the thing about cashews–moderation. I don’t know if they’re more caloric than other nuts or what, but they feel quite rich and a little do go a long way.
Walnuts are my favorite
Almonds
Pistachio
Peanuts
Pecans
Cashew
Brazil nuts
Filbert’s are my least favorite
Brazil nuts would rank higher if they weren’t so hard to shell. They often stick to the shell and come out in pieces.
Cashews - I could make a meal out of them
Pistachios - great for snacking
Peanuts in any form except boiled
Hazelnuts - best nut to go with chocolate
Almonds - too hard to eat whole but very tasty
Pecans - delicious, as long as they’re in the form of a praline
Walnuts - okay for baking, kind of icky by themselves
Macadamia - I’ve only ever tasted these in white chocolate chip cookies. Blecccccch
Brazil nuts- No discernible taste
To me, freshly roasted peanuts in the shell are irresistible - so much so that I avoid buying them because of what they do to my waistline. The problem with peanuts of all types is that they go stale pretty quickly. Stale peanuts are very resistible.
The rest of the list, in my order of preference from most to least favorite:
pistachios (which go stale even faster than peanuts)
macadamias
almonds
hazelnuts
cashews
pecans
walnuts
brazil nuts
I do think pecans and walnuts are excellent as ingredients. Pecan pie is great, and chopped toasted pecans are good in salads. Walnuts are delicious in baked goods. They’re just not my favorites for eating out of hand.
Most “nuts” aren’t really nuts in the botanical sense. Peanuts are legumes, almonds are drupes, cashews are just plain weird, walnuts and pistachios are some other sort of thing I can’t remember, and so on. But when we’re eating them, nobody actually cares about details like that.
Personally, I’d put pistachios and cashews in the first two spots. I think I’d rank pistachios slightly higher, but that could change with my mood. And peanuts are certainly in a good position for goodness per price.