On her album, Alligator Bites Don’t Heal, Doechii has a song called “Boiled Peanuts“.

I’d be lying if I said that song had nothing to do with last week’s experiment to make boiled peanuts. I’ve been aware this is something I could do with the peanuts I grow for a while, but hadn’t given this method a try. The song gave me a push to give it a whirl.

And I can’t believe it took me so long! What I didn’t know was that boiling peanuts would very quickly become my favourite way to use our peanut harvest.

2025 was our third peanut harvest. Over the last couple of years I’ve gone from 30 random seeds purchased on TradeMe to an entire bed filled with productive plants.

Selective breeding

Each season I save the best nuts off the best plants for planting on the next season. Doing this, year after year, should result in stronger, more productive plants over time.

I’m breeding for two things: multi-nuts (2-3 nuts in the shell), and consistent high yields on every plant.

It’s still early days yet, but I do think it’s working. In my first year, the productivity of the plants was really unpredictable with mostly average yields.

This year, every plant contained an acceptable yield; with the majority of plants practically dripping with nuts.

Still, the selectivity of it all also leaves me with a lot of peanuts that won’t be saved, and need eating. In previous years I’ve roasted and salted my peanuts for a little snack, and made peanut brownies.

But this year I wanted to try boiling them. Last year I left harvest a bit late, so seeing the weather system we now know as ‘Cyclone Tam’ on the weather forecast, I got out last Sunday to lift my peanut crop.

As I harvested the plants, the ones with the fewest peanuts attached got set aside for my experiment.

Cleaning the peanuts

By far the worst part of boiling fresh peanuts is cleaning them. Peanuts grow under the soil, so their shells are dirty when harvested.

And scrubbing that many small peanut shells before cooking them is a pretty irritating job—though on balance, not as bad as shelling and peeling the individual nuts like I’ve done in the past.

After removing the peanuts from the less-productive plants, I had just over a kilogram of nuts in their shells to play with.

The peanuts got dumped into a sink of water, where I took to them with a nail brush – scrubbing random handfuls and tidying them up as best I could.

It wasn’t a perfect job, but it served well enough. Ultimately, the peanuts are boiled in the shell, which is discarded. But I think in the future it would be worth refreshing the water for a second scrub.

Boiling the peanuts

There’s two main ways to boil peanuts: in a pot, or in a slow cooker. Both take a long time. I really couldn’t be bothered supervising a pot of boiling peanuts for half a day, so I went with the slow cooker option.

I put 1kg of fresh peanuts (in their shell), half a cup of salt, and a couple of litres of water—enough to cover the nuts—into the crock pot.

There is the option to add extra flavours with chilli or other spices at this point, but this time I just went with plain salt.

Then I flicked on the slow cooker to high and waited 6 hours. I stirred it a few times, but that was about all I had to do.

After 6 hours they were ready to be drained and eaten.

What the fu#k is a boiled peanut?

Richard (who doesn’t normally like peanuts) described boiled peanuts as being “like tiny potatoes”.

A comparison you might be familiar with is edamame. Peanuts and soy beans belong to the same plant family (legumes).

Just like edamame, a boiled peanut is eaten straight out of the shell, and requires peeling before eating. You’ll also need an extra bowl or plate for the discarded shells.

There’s only a hint of ‘peanut’ flavour in a boiled peanut. Instead they take on the salt they were boiled in, leaving you with a salty, smooshy, delicious treat.

It is safe to say, I’m a fan. It’s worth the pain of scrubbing them.

Boiled peanuts can be kept in the fridge for up to 5 days, or frozen indefinitely. I froze half of my batch, and snacked on the rest of them over the next few days.

Body and soul

Boiled peanuts feel like a super-food. Not in the pseudo-science kind of way. They’re just super. Peanuts are high in protein—around 25g per 100g—meaning they make a really great after-work snack.

When I get home from working my physical job (gardening), I am hungry and tired. I very much need something that will fill me up and nourish me, without the effort of doing much. And boiled peanuts, it turns out, are perfect.

A handful of boiled peanuts fixes that hole in my stomach and leaves me energised. There is added salt, and of course peanuts naturally contain oils; but overall there isn’t a lot of added nasties, processing is minimal.

And to put it delicately, I have noticed a positive effect on my body’s digestion over the last week as well. Possibly the 8.5g of fibre in 100g of peanuts.

You don’t know what you don’t know

Thank you to the Americans who left comments on my peanut posts for the last couple of seasons encouraging me to try this Southern delicacy.

You were right. Boiled peanuts are fantastic. I’ll play with some spices next year, I promise.

I always thought my ultimate goal with growing peanuts was to make a jar of peanut butter. But I can already see that boiled peanuts will be something I look forward to each harvest season.

Not only are they tasty and useful to have around, they’re also considerably easier than shelling, roasting, and peeling raw peanuts.

This year I got the peanuts right. I planted them, mulched them, and harvested them all at exactly the right time.

Given I still have nuts left from last year, it’s possible I am even on track to that jar of peanut butter too. I guess we’ll see what the winter brings.