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How-To Guide

Roasting Almonds and Cashews

Opposite problems

Almonds and cashews are often lumped together and they behave nothing alike.

Almonds are dense. Heat takes time to reach the centre, so the risk is a nut that is coloured on the outside and still bland and soft inside. The fix is patience — moderate heat for longer, rather than high heat for less.

Cashews are the reverse. Softer, curved, and quick to take colour. They can look barely touched and then be past it very shortly after. The risk is overshoot, and the fix is to watch them and pull early.

Roast them in the same batch at the same settings and you will get one of them wrong.

Almonds

  • Moderate heat, longer time — commonly cited around 10–20 minutes.
  • Judge by interior, not surface. Break one open: it should be evenly coloured through, not brown outside and white in the middle.
  • They are forgiving relative to pecans and cashews, but they punish impatience — high heat colours the skin long before the centre develops.
  • Skin-on and blanched behave differently; blanched colour faster.

Cashews

  • Lower and shorter — commonly around 8–15 minutes.
  • The colour change accelerates. Once they start going, they go.
  • Pull noticeably early; carry-over will finish them.
  • Their curved shape means they sit unevenly on a tray, so a drum's continuous tumbling helps more than it does with a flat nut.

What they share

Both are oily enough to keep roasting after you stop, and neither gives any audible cue. So both want the same discipline: measure rather than guess, pull slightly early, and cool fast with air moving through the batch rather than over it.

And for both: one nut per batch. This is the single most common mistake in nut roasting and it is entirely avoidable.

Doing it properly

On an RK Drum the nuts tumble continuously — which matters most for the curved, uneven ones — and the RoastPilot controller gives you a live temperature to pull against instead of a timer and a guess.

See temperature and time for the ranges.

Common questions

How long do you roast almonds?

Commonly around 10–20 minutes at moderate heat. Almonds are dense, so the interior lags the surface — judge doneness by breaking one open and checking it is evenly coloured through, not by surface colour alone. High heat colours the skin long before the centre develops.

How long do you roast cashews?

Roughly 8–15 minutes, lower and shorter than almonds. Cashews take colour quickly and the change accelerates once it starts, so pull them noticeably early and let carry-over finish them.

Can I roast almonds and cashews together?

No. They have opposite problems — almonds are dense and need longer for the interior to develop, cashews colour fast and overshoot. Roasted together at the same settings, one of them will be wrong. Run one nut per batch.

Why are my almonds brown outside but bland inside?

Too much heat, too fast. Almonds are dense, so the surface browns well before heat reaches the centre. Drop the temperature and extend the time — moderate heat for longer, rather than high heat for less.

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