Makes on 1 quart

Ingredients:

• 3 cups of homemade refrigerated chai tea (see directions below)
• ½ of a cinnamon stick
• *3 cups of a mixture of almonds, pecans, walnuts, or cashews
• 2 1/2 tsp of DIY chai seasoning mix
• 1 tsp of high quality sea salt
• 3 TBS of pure maple syrup

Directions:

1. If using loose leaf chai tea, boil water in a tea kettle. Add 2 heaping teaspoons of loose leaf chai tea and ½ a cinnamon stick to strainer in the teapot. Pour boiled water into teapot, cover with top, and let it sit for about 10 minutes or more. You may need to brew a second batch to make at least 3 cups, so you can repurpose the loose leaf chai tea and cinnamon stick if necessary. Let it cool and refrigerate in mason jar(s). If using tea bags, boil about 4 cups of water in a small pot then turn off the burner when water is boiling. Add 2 chai tea bags with a ½ of a cinnamon stick and cover pot. Let it sit for at least 10 minutes. Make sure the tea is cooled before refrigerating.
2. Soak nuts for at least 6 hours or overnight in a bowl submerged in 3 cups of cold chai tea.
3. Preheat oven to 225 degrees. Strain nuts and pat dry thoroughly with paper towels.
4. In a small bowl or container, mix chai seasoning and salt together. Put dried nuts in a large bowl and using your hands gradually add and mix in chai seasoning/salt into the nuts. When all the seasoning is in, gently yet thoroughly mix it all together with your hands. Add maple syrup and again, thoroughly toss together by hand.
5. Spread out nuts evenly on a large baking pan lined with parchment paper. Make sure the nuts don’t overlap. Bake for 1:20 hours. The nuts will crisp up a bit more when cooled. Let it sit for 2 hour or more on the stove or countertop, and you’ll hear crackling/snapping sounds.
6. * Almonds and (especially) cashews can be on the softer side after roasting for 1:20 minutes. Feel free to add extra 10 minutes if you like.
7. Place nuts in mason jar and cover. The nuts will dry out more over time.

Nuts will look overcooked when you pull them out of the oven because the chai tea and seasoning will further darken the color of the nuts.

Get Chai with the lightly sweetened, salty, smoky flavor that turn ordinary nuts into an addictively, healthy snack! Looking for more nutty ways to use Chai? Chai this DIY Almond Milk recipe.