Macadamia Recipes: Nine Ways to Use Them Beyond the Bowl

By Emily Patrikakos, Brand Executive at The Gourmet Pantry.

Macadamias are worth more than a bowl. Crushed into a crust, toasted over roast vegetables, blitzed into pesto in place of pine nuts or caramelised into praline, they do work no other nut does, because they are the oiliest nut in the pantry. Here are nine ways to use them, and the two rules that stop them burning.

Everything below is written around the Nutworks macadamias we range, which are Australian grown, dry roasted, and hand coated on the flavoured lines. The plain oven roast macadamias are the ones to cook with, at $7.95 for a 75g pouch. They sit in the snacking range next to the crackers and chips, which is roughly where most people stop thinking about them.

Why macadamias behave differently to every other nut

A macadamia is mostly fat, which is why it tastes like cream instead of wood, and why it goes wrong faster than an almond. Understand that one thing and the rest of this page follows. Fat conducts heat quickly, so a macadamia colours from pale to bitter in the time it takes to answer the door. Fat also means the nut has almost no structure holding it together, so it shatters rather than chops, and it turns to paste in a food processor while a hazelnut is still rubble.

The other practical fact is price. Macadamias cost more per kilo than almost any nut you would otherwise reach for, so they are a finishing ingredient, not a bulk one. A 75g pouch will crust two fillets of fish, or top a whole tray of roast pumpkin, or make enough praline for six puddings. Treat them like parmesan rather than like flour.

Rule one: toast them low, and stand there

160°C for 8 to 10 minutes on a dry oven tray, shaken once at the halfway mark, until they smell sweet and the cut faces have gone the colour of pale honey. A dry frying pan over medium heat works too and takes about 5 minutes, but it needs constant shaking. In both cases pull them a shade earlier than you think, because they keep cooking on the hot tray. Burnt macadamia is bitter in a way that no amount of salt or sugar covers.

Rule two: crush by hand unless you actually want butter

Put them in a sealed bag and hit them with the base of a saucepan, or press down on them with the flat of a large knife. You want gravel, not dust, and you want some pieces left whole for texture. A food processor gives you about four seconds of rubble and then, with no warning, macadamia butter. That is a useful accident, but only when it is on purpose.

If your recipe calls for a different nut

Macadamias swap in for most nuts, but they change the dish rather than simply replacing a part. What follows is what actually changes.

Three savoury ways

All three treat the nut as a texture and a finish rather than a filler, which is the only way the maths works at nut prices.

1. A crushed crust on fish or chicken

Crush a 75g pouch coarsely and mix it half and half with panko. Pat a fillet dry, brush it with dijon or a thin smear of soft butter so something grips, press the crumb on firmly and bake at 180°C. The panko matters: a pure macadamia crust burns before a thick fillet is cooked through. Works on salmon, on white fish, on chicken thighs, and on a whole side of fish for a table.

2. Pesto without pine nuts

Swap macadamias in for pine nuts at the same weight. Toast them first, then blitz with basil, garlic, parmesan and olive oil in short pulses. The result is creamier and sweeter than a classic pesto, which is either the point or the problem depending on the dish, so taste it and add lemon juice and salt until it has an edge again. It is very good stirred through warm potatoes and better than it should be on a bacon sandwich.

3. Toasted rubble over roast vegetables

The single highest return use. Roast pumpkin, carrots or cauliflower as normal, then scatter over crushed roast salt macadamias in the last two minutes, off the heat, with chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon. A tray of vegetables goes from a side dish to the thing people ask about. Do not add the nuts earlier, because 40 minutes at 200°C will ruin them.

Three sweet ways

Macadamia is the mildest of the nuts, so in sweet cooking it needs either caramel or salt beside it to stop it reading as nothing.

4. Macadamia praline

Melt 100g caster sugar dry in a heavy pan over medium heat, without stirring, until it is the colour of honey. Stir in 100g toasted macadamias, tip the lot onto baking paper, spread it thin and leave it to set hard. Smash it into shards for the top of a pavlova, or into rubble for ice cream, tiramisu or a trifle. It keeps for a fortnight in an airtight jar, which makes it a genuine make-ahead job in December.

5. Folded through shortbread and biscuit dough

Roughly chopped macadamias go into a shortbread or a biscuit dough at the last fold, along with white chocolate if you are going that way. Because the nuts are protected by the dough they can go in raw and untoasted. Keep the pieces large. Finely chopped macadamia disappears into the crumb and you will have spent good nuts on nothing.

6. On top of a crumble, at the end

Crushed macadamias make a better crumble topping than almonds, but they cannot sit in the oven for 45 minutes. Bake the fruit and a plain oat crumble first, then scatter the nuts over for the final 15 minutes. Stone fruit in summer, apple and rhubarb the rest of the year. A spoonful of manuka honey macadamias crushed over the finished dish does the same job with no extra work at all.

Three ways with no cooking at all

7. Macadamia butter, in four minutes

Blitz two toasted 75g pouches in a small food processor, scraping down every minute. They go through sand, then a stiff paste, then a pourable butter, with no added oil at all because the oil is already in the nut. Salt it lightly. Use it on toast, in a satay style sauce, or thinned with lime and fish sauce as a slaw dressing.

8. Through a salad or a grain bowl

Toast, halve, and add at the table rather than in the bowl, because they soften once they meet a dressing. They are particularly good against bitter leaves, roast beetroot, or a couscous salad with herbs. A handful of rosemary and sea salt macadamias does the work of nuts and seasoning together.

9. Crushed over soft cheese

Crush a pouch over labne, whipped feta or a baked camembert, add olive oil and let people scoop. This is the laziest thing on the list and the one guests remember. Finger lime and jalapeno macadamias are the pick here, sharp and green against something rich, though they are a special edition run, so they come and go.

Cooking with the flavoured pouches

The coating sits on the outside of the nut, so heat treats it badly. Honey catches and burns, wasabi seasoning loses most of its heat in an oven, and salt concentrates. Add flavoured macadamias at the end, off the heat, and cut the salt elsewhere. Wasabi macadamias crushed over hot salmon in the last minute keep their sting. The same nuts baked into a crust taste of very little.

On a board they need no help. Rosemary and sea salt goes under hard cheese, honey sits next to blue, and wasabi belongs in its own small bowl so nobody meets it by accident. Our guide to which cracker goes with which cheese covers the base layer, and the festive entertaining essentials range has the rest. Worth the five seconds it takes: macadamias are a tree nut, so say so before a shared board goes down.

Nuts also travel better than almost anything else in an Australian December. They do not melt and they survive a hot letterbox, which is why they turn up in so many Christmas hampers. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched from our Corio warehouse that day, and shipping is free once an order passes $100.

Questions we get about cooking with macadamias

Can you cook with flavoured macadamias?

Yes, but add them at the end. The seasoning is a coating, not something baked through the nut, so long heat scorches honey, dulls wasabi and concentrates salt. Crush them over a finished dish, or stir them in once the pan is off the heat, and reduce the salt elsewhere. For anything needing real oven time, use plain oven roast nuts.

Where are Nutworks macadamias grown?

The macadamia is one of the very few native Australian plants farmed as a commercial food crop, originally a rainforest tree from the east coast. Nutworks packs state Australian grown, and the nuts are dry roasted and hand coated by the brand rather than bought in finished. We do not name a specific orchard or region here, because the pack copy does not.

How should macadamias be stored?

Airtight, cool and dark, and never in the cupboard above the stove. High oil content means they go flat well before they go off, and flat is the disappointing stage. Reseal an opened pouch and finish it within a few weeks. For longer, the freezer beats the pantry and they need no thawing. Nuts still in the shell keep longest.

Which macadamia flavour works on a cheese board?

Rosemary and sea salt is the all rounder, savoury enough to sit under cheddar, manchego or a hard goat without arguing with it. Finger lime and jalapeno is the one for soft cheese, where the citrus cuts through. Manuka honey belongs beside blue, an old pairing for good reason. Keep wasabi in its own bowl.

Start with the plain nuts and one flavoured pouch: browse the Nutworks range, or read how to crack a macadamia nut if the nut-in-shell packs are the ones tempting you.