Understanding the Difference Between Pecans and Walnuts

Understanding the Difference Between Pecans and Walnuts

To the untrained eye, pecans and walnuts can look eerily similar. But there are differences between these delicious nuts! They’re great as snacks, versatile in recipes, and provide many health benefits that can reduce your risk of developing chronic health conditions.

Understanding the difference between pecans and walnuts can help you decide which one you might like more!

Appearance

Typically, walnuts are lighter and slightly larger than pecans. When removed from their shells, they have a golden color. Walnuts are also softer; grinding or crumbling them is easy.

Pecans are usually darker, while walnuts are stubbier and have two hemispheres with a brain-like shape. While pecans have a similar form, they’re flatter and more elongated, and their shells are more difficult to open than walnut shells.

Taste

If you have a sweet tooth, you might love pecans more, as they’re less bitter than walnuts. You'll find pecans in desserts more often than walnuts. Walnuts work very well in savory recipes, and their slight bitterness and crunchy texture can liven up everything from oatmeal to salads and pasta.

Overall, you can use pecans and walnuts interchangeably in recipes. When shopping for nuts for a specific recipe, walnuts tend to be more expensive but have a longer shelf-life than pecans.

Nutritional Value

Like most other nuts, walnuts and pecans offer a ton of nutritional value to our diets. There’s little difference between nuts and walnuts in the nutrients they provide, but pecans have slightly fewer calories and offer more fiber than walnuts. If you're creating recipes to encourage weight loss, pecans can give you a bit more of a feeling of fullness, thanks to their fiber content.

However, walnuts are higher in protein, which can benefit you if you substitute nuts for a meat source. Both walnuts and pecans offer benefits to your cardiovascular and digestive systems, besides providing many other advantages.

Understanding the difference between pecans and walnuts can give you some fun facts to share the next time you’re preparing a snack! Find pecan nuts for sale at Sohnrey Family Foods!

Share this post...

Previous post Next post

Comments

  • Anita Moffett - August 23, 2024

    Walnuts grow on trees. You would be best off purchasing a tree that is 4-6 feet tall. It will still take quite a while to get enough walnuts to do anything with. Also they have a tough green outer skin that needs to be dried and removed before you get to the actual walnut that is the seed inside. That is the part we eat. Also note that the outer skin stains permanently on most Clothing and the the skin and shells can be boiled to make a natural dye

  • E - July 30, 2024

    E

  • Elias Kanambiu Mbui - January 28, 2024

    I would like to plant walnuts, where can I buy seeds?

Leave a comment