Foraging Chestnuts and Walnuts, and How to Store Them So They Last
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The first time it happened, I thought someone was throwing things at the roof.
It was our second week on the farm, the middle of the night, and I lay in bed listening to a sudden thunk, then a skittering roll, then silence. Then another thunk. My sleep-deprived brain ran through every possibility: burglars, owls, a very confused neighbor. Eventually I crept to the window with my phone flashlight and saw it. The old tree at the corner of the barn was dropping its fruit, one heavy green ball at a time, onto the tin roof below.
Chestnuts.
We have chestnut trees. And walnut trees. Old, enormous, gnarled ones, older than anyone in the village can remember, and for a few weeks every fall they rain down treasure on anyone patient enough to gather it.
If you’ve never foraged nuts before, I can’t tell you how quietly joyful it is. There’s something ancient about it, about walking under the trees with a basket on a damp, misty morning, kicking through the leaves and finding that glossy flash of brown. It makes you feel like you’re part of something much older than yourself. It also makes your fingers black, prickled and stained for a week, but we’ll get to that.
Here’s everything I’ve learned this fall, mostly by asking the neighbors and getting it slightly wrong first, about foraging chestnuts and walnuts, how to tell the good ones from the bad and, most importantly, how to store them so they last.
A quick word on foraging safely and kindly
Before we start, a few gentle ground rules, because foraging comes with responsibilities.
- Only pick where you’re allowed. If the trees aren’t on your land or clearly public, ask first. In rural areas, those trees almost always belong to someone, and they may well depend on that harvest.
- Leave plenty behind. Squirrels, jays, deer and wild boar rely on fall nuts to get through winter. Take what you’ll actually use.
- Be 100% sure what you’re picking. This matters more than anything, which brings me to the most important section of this post.
Sweet chestnut or horse chestnut? How to tell the difference
There are two very different trees that both get called “chestnut,” and only one of them is food.
Sweet chestnuts (the ones you roast) are edible and delicious. Horse chestnuts (the shiny “conkers” children play with in some parts of the world) are toxic and can make you seriously ill if eaten. They look similar enough at a glance that every year people mix them up, so please learn the differences before you gather a single one.
| Sweet chestnut (edible) | Horse chestnut (toxic) | |
|---|---|---|
| Husk | Covered in very dense, fine, sharp spines, like a little hedgehog or sea urchin. Painful to touch. | Thick, fleshy green husk with a few short, stubby, widely spaced bumps or spikes. |
| Nuts per husk | Usually two or three, often flattened on one side where they pressed together. | Usually just one, sometimes two. |
| Shape | Flat on one side, with a pointed tip and a little tuft or “tassel” at the top. | Round and smooth all over, with no point and no tassel. |
| Shine | Glossy brown, often with faint stripes. | Very glossy, polished brown with a large pale spot. |
| Leaves | Long, single, saw-toothed leaves growing alternately along the twig. | Large leaves made of five to seven “fingers” spreading from one point, like a hand. |
The easiest checks, once you’ve got a nut in your hand: does it have a pointy tip with a little tassel? Did it come out of a spiky hedgehog husk with siblings? If yes, it’s a sweet chestnut. If it’s perfectly round, smooth and came alone out of a knobbly husk, it’s a horse chestnut. Leave it for the conker games.
When in doubt, leave it out. Always.
How to forage chestnuts
Sweet chestnuts usually fall from late September through November. The ripe husks split open on the tree or as they hit the ground, and the best nuts are the ones you find freshly fallen, glossy and heavy.
- Wear thick gloves, or at least sturdy boots. You can roll the spiky husks under your boot to pop the nuts out without touching them. My two-year-old calls this “stomping the hedgehogs” and would happily do it for hours.
- Go early. Wildlife gets to the good ones fast. A morning walk after a windy night is ideal.
- Pick plump, shiny, heavy nuts. Skip any that look shriveled, dull, cracked or that feel light for their size.
- Look for little holes. A tiny round hole in the shell usually means a chestnut weevil has moved in. Leave those behind (the chickens will thank you if you bring them home).
How to tell good chestnuts from bad ones
Once you’re home, do the float test. Tip your chestnuts into a big bowl of water and leave them for a few minutes. The good ones sink. The ones that float are usually dried out, hollow or have something living inside, so set those aside.
Then give the sinkers a squeeze. A good chestnut feels firm and full, with the shell tight against the nut. If there’s a gap or it gives under your thumb, it’s past its best.
Finally, when you peel them, the inside should be creamy white or pale yellow and smell fresh and nutty. Any gray, black, powdery or moldy patches mean it goes in the compost, not the pan.
How to store chestnuts so they last
Here’s the thing most people don’t realize, and the mistake I made in my first week: chestnuts aren’t like other nuts. They’re full of water and starch, more like a vegetable than a walnut, so they spoil fast at room temperature. That beautiful basket on the kitchen counter? It’ll be moldy within a week or two. (Ask me how I know.)
In the fridge (a few weeks)
Fresh chestnuts keep best in the fridge. Put them in a paper bag or a plastic bag with a few holes poked in it, so they can breathe without drying out, and store them in the vegetable drawer. They’ll keep for two to four weeks, and they actually get a little sweeter as some of their starch turns to sugar.
In the freezer (up to a year)
For long-term storage, freezing is your friend. You can freeze them raw in their shells (cut a cross in each one first, so they’re easy to peel later), but I much prefer to roast them (a chestnut pan with holes makes this easy) or boil them, peel them while they’re warm and then freeze the peeled nuts in bags. That way they’re ready to throw into soups, stuffing or stews all winter long.
Dried (many months)
Drying is the old way, the way people stored chestnuts for centuries to make them last through the winter. Peeled chestnuts can be dried slowly in a dehydrator or a very low oven until rock hard, then stored in jars and ground into chestnut flour or soaked back to life for cooking.
How to forage walnuts
Walnuts fall in early to mid-fall, still wrapped in a thick green husk that slowly turns blackish as it softens. You’ll know they’re ready when the husks start to split and the nuts drop on their own.
A word of warning, from someone who learned the hard way: wear gloves. Walnut husks contain a natural dye that stains your skin a deep brown-black, and it doesn’t wash off. It just slowly wears away over a week or two. I spent our first week of school drop-offs hiding my hands in my coat pockets like I’d committed a crime. The other parents must have wondered.
How to dry and store walnuts
- Remove the husks. Peel or roll them off (gloves!). If they’re stubborn, leave them in a bucket for a few days to soften.
- Wash the nuts. Give them a scrub in a bucket of water. Any that float are usually empty or bad, so toss those.
- Dry them. Spread the nuts in a single layer somewhere warm, dry and airy, out of direct sun and away from squirrels and mice. A rack, a mesh screen or a box with holes in the bottom works well. Turn them every few days. It usually takes two to four weeks.
- Check they’re ready. Crack one open (a sturdy nutcracker makes this much easier). The kernel should snap cleanly rather than bend, and the papery divider inside should be brittle.
- Store them. Keep walnuts in their shells in a cool, dry place in mesh bags or baskets, and they’ll last for months. Once shelled, store the kernels in an airtight jar in the fridge or freezer, as the oils go rancid quickly at room temperature.
How to tell good walnuts from bad ones
A good walnut feels heavy for its size and doesn’t rattle much when you shake it. Inside, the kernel should be plump, pale golden to light brown and taste sweet and mild. If it tastes bitter or sharp, smells like old paint or looks shriveled and dark, it’s rancid and goes on the compost heap.
Foraging with little ones
I’ll be honest, foraging with a two-year-old and a baby isn’t exactly efficient. Every chestnut must be examined, named and placed in the basket with great ceremony. Several are thrown at the dog. At least one walnut has been hidden inside a rain boot and only discovered three days later.
But it’s also become one of my favorite things we do together. We talk about the trees, about the squirrels getting ready for winter, about why the leaves are falling. The eldest brings her finds home from walks to add to our fall nature table. And they’re learning, without anyone sitting them down to teach them, that food doesn’t come from shops. It falls from trees, if you’re patient enough to wait and kind enough to share.
The generosity of old trees
Some evenings, after the girls are in bed, I walk out to the old chestnut tree by the barn and just stand under it for a while. It’s been here for generations. It has watched families come and go, harvests succeed and fail, children grow up and move away. And every single fall, without anyone asking, it gives.
There’s a lesson in that somewhere, I think. About patience, and generosity, and putting down roots deep enough to weather anything.
Mostly, though, I think about roasted chestnuts. And how many I can fit in the freezer.
With love (and slightly stained fingers),
Milly x
P.S. Do you forage in the fall? I’d love to know what grows near you. Tell me in the comments. And if you want a hand filling your pantry all year round, my free Grow, Harvest, Preserve Calendar is a good place to start.
