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Every year my son and I carve our pumpkin for Halloween and years ago I decided to keep the seeds and roast them. Last year I made a chili-lime pumpkin seed recipe and this year I decided to go with garlic. I used aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas) instead of oil to coat the seeds. It worked out nicely, out came garlic-flavored seeds. I didn’t use much garlic powder since these were to be shared with my little chickpea, so they’re lightly flavored. Most of the flavor comes from the brine that I soak my seeds overnight.

Using a brine for pumpkin seeds takes some planning and time. It’s mainly inactive because the seeds will soak overnight in a brine, then dry the next day. You can check out this post for more detailed instructions on How to Brine and Roast Pumpkin Seeds. It calls for a lot of salt, but all of it won’t be soaked up by the seeds. The brine infuses flavor into the pumpkin seeds without coating them in salt. It flavors them from the inside out. This is an oil-free recipe, so the seeds don’t brown very much, but the garlic and brine add a lot of flavors.

To prevent the garlic powder from clumping, you can mix the garlic into the aquafaba first, then add it to the pumpkin seeds.