Mmmmm...boiled peanuts!

Boiled peanuts remind me of eating pinto beans and about half as good as such. Roasted Spanish for me.

When I was a three year old I would beg for the near empty jar of Duke’s and clean it out with a spoon followed by my little hand. That was the high life until I got food poisoning from cleaning out a jar on a hot summer day. It was thirty some years before I could hold my stomach from a faint smell of that rich favor. Today my mater sandwiches can have the lightest spread of the South’s best but no more or I’m back to gagging. Strange how no one mentions Dukes on nanner sandwiches. For me that is what makes it the top mayo.
 
Being from Florida, Im used to all kinds of road side peanut vendors and Ive tried making them myself. Seems like I can never get them tender enough no matter what I do so I quit even trying about 30 years ago.. The lil country store near me sells me the big cans for $8 ( Peanut patch brand) and I eat them cold right out of the can. I just keep them in the beer fridge out in the garage but have to be careful how many I eat.. Found them to be the best natural laxative there is..
When it comes to a royal flushing on the bowels a stop at McDonalds to purchase a Big Mac does the trick. It works nationwide and I had better be within a short run of a throne once consumed!
 
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I just finished my first batch from the bushel. They’re soaking in a cooler. It’ll take probably two to three more batches to finish the bushel. These are the freshest, cleanest batch of green peanuts I’ve gotten in some time. If you’re ever in the area, Hickory Bluff Berry Farms in Holly Hill SC has some excellent product. Tell them Tripp sent ya!
 
Wow yalls are early. The farmers around here just got done spreading the land plaster to make them grow the seeds. I think I have 2 bags left. I might make it.
 
Wow yalls are early. The farmers around here just got done spreading the land plaster to make them grow the seeds. I think I have 2 bags left. I might make it.
Yeah, I never know when I come down for vacation if they’ll be ready or not. Last year I got the last they had and it was this same week I was here. Hit it perfect this year.
 
Anybody ever boiled them without the shell?

I came into about 20lbs shelled green peanuts. I've been roasting them but I like boiled better.
 
I love peanuts but, I have tried 3-4 different times and I can't do it. Slimy, crap, and mayo is mayo to me. I don't care what brand it is. Just like ketchup red is red.
LOL Funny post.. I think its an acquired taste.. First thing that some one should have told you is that they don't taste like roasted peanuts. Its more like a salty bean that you have to work for to open..
 
Anybody ever boiled them without the shell?

I came into about 20lbs shelled green peanuts. I've been roasting them but I like boiled better.
Nope,, but If I have 20 lbs ? I would give it a try..Just might turn into really salty peanut butter tho ? Let us know how it it works out?
 
Ok, had to try a thing tonight:

Ninja foodie...or what every this multi pot is called
2 lb of raw peanuts
enough water to cover
3/4 cup meditraine camel ass salt
1/4 smoked salt

pressure cooked for 40 min. Sat in water for 2 hr.


That's some good stuff right here. Enough smoke to taste but not over kill. Peanuts done but not mushy. Goes good with bourbon...
 
Old bay does good, cajun seasoning, pickling spice, bbq dry rub, pretty much anything you can think of. There's a roadside place here in town that always is doing 2-3 different flavors, some are great, some are misses, but you can make them in a small crock pot so really don't waste a lot if you don't like what you came up with.

QUESTION:
I've never used any other seasoning. Anybody else have other seasonings they like? I'm wondering if Old Bay might turn out well.
 
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Just picked up 10lbs to boil this afternoon and soak overnight. 10lbs for $17.50 this year up a bit from 2 years ago $12/10lb. But then again these are hand picked for jumbos and washed twice so they're ready to go. He can do what ever amount you want and usually the price changes with volume. He typically has 50-60lbs ready to go at any time. His number is in the picture below.

Some have asked where in the past. He is just west of Farmville on 264Alternate which is west of Greenville, NC. Probably 25 minutes from Wilson.

peanuts.jpg
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All cooked and now soaking overnight in a cooler. Soon after the heat was turned off, all but a handful sunk to the bottom. Good afternoon, cooking peanuts, drinking bourbon, and pissing off squirrels in the pecan tree with a red ryder. Doesn't kill em but they sure are pissed.
20210918_175215.jpg
 
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All cooked and now soaking overnight in a cooler. Soon after the heat was turned off, all but a handful sunk to the bottom. Good afternoon, cooking peanuts, drinking bourbon, and pissing off squirrels in the pecan tree with a red ryder. Doesn't kill em but they sure are pissed.
View attachment 378274

Head shots with my old Red Ryder killed "em.

Them's some mighty nice looking peanuts!
 
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they weakened a lot of "kid" bb guns and pellet rifles
if you want one that can kill a varmint, you're gonna have to spend closer to $200 than $50.
My wife bought me a shiny new daisy CO2 rifle as a christmas present. it was definitely weaker than the old daisy pump one i had since my childhood. It had to be returned because it was ... useless?
 
So I'm down to my last bag and its that time of the year again. I plan on going to get more green peanuts later this week or next. This year I want to try to make some BBQ flavored ones, not hot, hot is just bland IMO. Has anyone tried to make BBQ flavored ones? I was thinking of picking up a jug or two of rub and dumping it into the water for a batch? Any thoughts?
 
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Good to see this thread revived! Here are some more learnin's on the subject:

For those who don't know, there's "green" peanuts and then there's "raw" peanuts. Green peanuts are fresh from the field and raw peanuts are dried. Green peanuts don't last long unless you refrigerate them or dry them. And they can only be refrigerated for so long, too. If you want green peanuts to last more than a few days, they need to be frozen.

You can thank my wife for explaining that to me. You're all probably thinking "WOW! Chief's got a really cool wife!", and you'd be right. But she's also downright annoying when she goes on to complain when I bring ten pounds of raw peanuts home "Why didn't you get green peanuts?" "Really?!? Maybe because it's January and peanuts are half a year out of season?"

🙃

Green peanuts are the bestest peanuts to make boiled peanuts from. Mostly, in my opinion, because it takes far less time to make boiled peanuts from green peanuts. Because raw peanuts start dry, it literally takes up to 10 times longer to make because they need to be rehydrated.

Let's cover the process, mostly for those who haven't made their own.

The only thing I hate about making my own boiled peanuts is the time it takes to make them from raw. And the worst part is starting out, because every frickin' peanut hull is full of air and wants to bob like a cork on the water. It takes FOREVER to get those buggers soaked properly. People say "over night", but I've found that to be naive. Sometimes you need a full 24 to 48 hours of soaking. And even then, cooking on the stove requires frequent attention over several hours to be sure you keep the water level up.


Since my original posting nearly 3 years ago, I've long since moved on to using my wife's InstaPot. This takes ALL the annoying work out of it! To be sure, raw peanuts still take longer than green peanuts, but the InstaPot makes it effortless. Set the time and pressure and leave it alone.

For straight up salted peanuts, I prefer about 1 cup of kosher salt per gallon of water. My wife likes less salt, so I use 3/4 cup occasionally, because I need to keep my wife happy, too. My youngest daughter and I enjoy them spicy, so I use a mix of kosher salt and Tony Cachere's Original Creole Seasoning, then add Worchestershire Sauce, liquid smoke, and hot peppers. I don't recall the exact portions, as we kinds just add what looks good and go with it.

The gallon of salted water goes into the InstaPot. Raw peanuts go into that. (About half a bag, the size I get. I forget how many pounds in the bag.) It's enough peanuts to completely submerge in the water when pressed down, without overflowing the pot. I have a cheap plate I bought at Walmart to lay on top of the peanuts to help hold them under the water. It's sized perfectly to fit the InstaPot for this purpose.

Set the InstaPot for an hour at high. Then walk away and forget about it. As the temperature increases, the air inside the peanut hulls is driven out. When the InstaPot cools down after the pressure cooking cycle is done, the water is sucked back into the hulls where it needs to be.

Take the lid off and remove the plate...you won't need it anymore because the peanuts are all sitting below the surface of the water.

At this point, the peanuts are soaking in ernest. In fact, you can start cooking them at this point, which is what I do. Or you can let them sit over night before you start. If you want to leave them overnight, you can set the InstaPot on a warming cycle for 10-12 hours...LO, MED, or HIGH. It's kinda like a crock pot at this point, slow cooking them as they soak. Then start cooking them afterwards. They will be well hydrated by then, and have had a lot of time to absorb the salt/seasonings in the process. But honestly, the real absorbtion of flavors from the salt and seasonings doesn't happen until the peanuts are actually softened from the cooking process. So the sooner you start cooking them, the better.

Raw peanuts will still require more actual cooking time than green peanuts, even so. I generally set the InstaPot for about 3 or 4 hours on HIGH. My wife likes them a little bit "crunchy". I prefer them completely soft. At 3-4 hours, they're well cooked, but not quite completely soft all the way through. A fair compromise in our house. To make them the way I'd prefer them, I usually double the cooking time from the point where my wife likes them.


I like to eat my peanuts while they're hot/warm, fresh from the pot. I will typically just keep them in the InstaPot after they're cooked and put them on a warming cycle, set for 10-12 hours. Whenever I want peanuts, I'll scoop a bowl out and eat them, then reset the InstaPot to keep the rest warm. My wife rolls her eyes at this, complaining that I should just put them in the fridge and reheat what I want from there. But unless she needs her InstaPot back for something else, she loses that battle! She's also crazy, as she insists they get drained before putting into the fridge. Sometimes I wonder if she's REALLY Southern when she says something like that.


The InstaPot still takes time. It DOES speed the actual process up quite a bit, but the real savings lies in the completely effortless amount of work required on your part. Get 'em in the pot, set the pot, then walk away and ignore it. No further tending required.

Oh...and cleaning is a breeze. When making on the stove, I'll have to clean the entire stove top and adjacent countertop because the boiling/simmering causes tiny spatters in the process. Not difficult, to be sure, but this is totally absent when using the InstaPot.


I cannot recommend the InstaPot highly enough for making boiled peanuts from raw peanuts. Green peanuts should be much faster, but I haven't tried them in the InstaPot yet.


CLEANING THE PEANUTS:

Since I typically use raw peanuts, they're pretty clean to start with. Some sites I've read on the subject say to rinse them once as part of the soaking process. I usually don't, because where I buy them at the roadside stores along highway 58 between Suffolk and Emporia, VA they're already clean. When I do, however, I simply pour the brine out of the InstaPot, maybe flush with some fresh water, then add more brine before starting the cooking.

When soaking green peanuts, many sites say to rinse them three times as part of the process. I haven't used green peanuts as yet in the InstaPot: even when they're in season, I typically get raw peanuts because we don't cook large enough batches and would end up wasting some of the geen ones. Maybe I'll see if I can get a smaller amount of green ones some day.
 
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Its fixing to be on tomorrow. I just picked up 15lbs. 10lbs will be plain and 5lbs I will try bbq. $2/lb this year from the guy in my earlier post in Farmville, NC. They hand pick them off the vine for only the jumbos and they couldn't pick them fast enough. I was there for less than 10 minutes and saw probably 60 lbs or so sold. Ole farmer was wore slam out just weighing and packing. There were probably 8-10 farm hands picking into 5 gallon buckets.
 
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They hand pick them off the vine roots for only the jumbos and they couldn't pick them fast enough.

Peanuts are legumes. When they're ready to harvest, the main root is cut, the plant pulled up by the roots, shaken to remove most of the dirt, and put upside down on the ground for 3-4 days to allow the pods to dry out a bit. Then they're threshed to remove the pods. You may have seen them after the point where they've been uprooted.

Pretty cool process, really!
 
Peanuts are legumes. When they're ready to harvest, the main root is cut, the plant pulled up by the roots, shaken to remove most of the dirt, and put upside down on the ground for 3-4 days to allow the pods to dry out a bit. Then they're threshed to remove the pods. You may have seen them after the point where they've been uprooted.

Pretty cool process, really!
yes. back in high school I'd help a church member on his farm some during the summers and other times. He grew mostly tobacco and corn but had some peanuts. Being younger, I mainly was an errand boy (running to town for redman bacca' and parts) but once in a while I'd get to help pull the combine that beat them out of the bushes. It was dusty as heck. This farm where I had my first boiled peanuts as he'd cook them in a big iron washpot. Sadly, he passed not long after and the family sold it off. IIRC The length the drying process after they flipped depended on the nut moisture and the outside temperatures as the buyer doesn't want it too wet as they could spoil but if they got too dry, he lost money in poundage. Back then if they got the black mold looking stuff on the outside from getting caught in a rain, they got less money per pound as well.

The farmer I buy the peanuts from currently pulls them fresh each day, He turns them over and with a front-end loader loads up wagons plant and all that are brought back to the big shade tree and the peanuts are picked off and sorted right there. This isn't the normal, commercial way of picking as he is picking for his roadside farmstand. When I asked a few years ago he said it kept the hulls looking the nicest and thus the folks buying them. The hand picking/sorting allows for the bigger nuts and removes the "pops". If one has ever eaten the canned peanuts and found the smaller shells missing a nut, those are called "pops" as they pop when you squeeze them fresh out of the field.
 
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Couple more hours to go.

(From the snark corner: "If you'd used the Instant Pot it would have only taken 30 minutes.")

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I love them too. Reminds me of my old man, who used to drive thru Enterprise Al on the way to Panama City FL, just to stop at roadside stands for boiled peanuts and eat them on the drive. The results of that and beer were GHASTLY. I mean, I sat in the back of the car and rolled down my windows in a rain storm because of the stench.

I still love to eat them myself, and yes, I drink beer with them.
 
Well,,, it was 1/2 cup smoked and 1/2 cup sea salt in our big crock pot. I would look and tell you but I broke it and the new one is different, lol

I tend to like my boiled peanuts a bit more on the salty side. It seems like most of the boiled peanutes I buy at ball games and fairs are like that. When I make it at home, though, my wife thinks I make it too salty. At about 3/4 cup per gallon, she quits complaining. She'd probably prefer it more like 1/2 cup per gallon.

What's funny is when her Dad used to make boiled peanuts, they were WAY salty, and even I agreed!
 
I tend to like my boiled peanuts a bit more on the salty side. It seems like most of the boiled peanutes I buy at ball games and fairs are like that. When I make it at home, though, my wife thinks I make it too salty. At about 3/4 cup per gallon, she quits complaining. She'd probably prefer it more like 1/2 cup per gallon.

What's funny is when her Dad used to make boiled peanuts, they were WAY salty, and even I agreed!

Yea we're pretty close. I'm not supposed to eat this salty stuff so my mix is around 2.5 gallons of water (for 10lbs of nuts) and about 8oz of salt (loosely I measure with about 3/4 a 12oz styrofoam cup). So that works out to be about 1/2 cup per gallon. I do an overnight soak in a cooler so I think I can use less salt to get a taste. The nuts went into the cooler around 8ish or so last night and were still 142F this morning when bagged so food safe temps. The soak is the key. I don't know who ate more nuts today, me or the dog. He won't eat them in the shell, I have to shell them for him and then its on. It must have been a good year as 1 in 4 nuts was a 3 nutter lol.

I did do 5lbs of BBQ but I don't have a conclusion yet. I ended up adding 19oz of BBQ rub to about 2 gallons of water and 5lbs of nuts. I ate plain today. Trying a pint of bbq tomorrow.
 
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I feel about boiled peanuts like I do about boiled okra...🤮. On the other hand, just got the first big bag of the seaon of Hamptons salted in the shell peanuts and they are delicious!
 
There's a couple of folks that have been selling them for years in Clarkton at the intersection of 211 and 701. They seem to be doing a good business, always someone there buying.
 
I just looked up Clarkton...wow! Is there anything there OTHER than the intersection of 211 and 701?

🤣

Definitely off my beaten path or I'd give them a try.

Boiled peanuts sure grew on me in a big way after I married my wife.
 
@tod0987

How are you going to season them?
Just straight salt. probably around 10ish oz in a big turkey frier pot of them. I'd like them a bit more salty than last year (around 8 oz) which had a low salt taste.

Last year I tried some BBQ seasoning in the water and it was mehh. I preferred and reached for the plain more than bbq. I've also tried cooking them with a bunch of smoked hocs and neckbones one year and it was meh for the cost of all the seasoning meat.
 
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@tod0987

I like them saltier than most...upwards of 1 cup salt per gallon of water. My wife likes them less salty...about 1/2 cup per gallon. 3/4 cup is a nice medium for me.

As for other seasoning...I don't go BBQ. I'll use something like creole seasoning, red pepper flakes, and a touch of liquid smoke. It changes up a bit every time as I experiment, though. For this, about 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup creole seasoning, a tablespoon or two or red pepper flakes, and a tablespoon of liquid smoke per gallon of water...which is what the Instapot holds.

My wife is a plain salt kinda person, but my youngest daughter and I like to spice things up a bit once in a while. It is hard to top plain ole salt, though.
 
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