---
title: "How to Identify and Eat Hickory Nuts"
description: "One of my favorite fall wild edibles is a pain to crack open, but well worth the trouble. If you can break into the armored fortress that is a hickory nut, you won't be disappointed. The fatty nut meats of most species are rich, oily, and pecan-flavored. This flavor shouldn’t be a surprise since pecans are a southern species of hickory. Here’s how to identify and use the highest calorie wild plant food in the U.S."
date: "2015-10-24"
modified: "2015-10-24"
authors:
  - name: "Tim MacWelch"
    link: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/authors/tim-macwelch/"
url: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/how-identify-and-eat-hickory-nuts/"
categories:
  - "Foraging & Gardening"
  - "Survival"
---

# How to Identify and Eat Hickory Nuts

![](<https://www.outdoorlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/23/D5H6HSGNJXDXAWJMXLSEAEXMFY.png>)

One of my favorite fall wild edibles is a pain to crack open, but well worth the trouble. If you can break into the armored fortress that is a hickory nut, you won't be disappointed. The fatty nut meats of most species are rich, oily, and pecan-flavored. This flavor shouldn’t be a surprise since pecans are a southern species of hickory. Here’s how to identify and use the highest calorie wild plant food in the U.S.

The trees of the genus *Carya* are deciduous hardwood trees found in North America and Asia. The leaves are alternate compound and the nuts have a "double" nut shell. There's a husk that peels off, revealing a nut shell underneath. Just make sure you don't get a buckeye. They have a double layered nut shell like hickory, but buckeye nuts are poisonous. Hickory nuts have a multi chambered inner nutshell (like a walnut), while the toxic buckeyes have a solid nutmeat (like an almond).

Hickory nuts are the most calorie-dense wild plant food. One ounce of shelled out hickory nut meats packs a whopping 193 calories, with most of that coming from fat. These sweet and fatty nut meats can be used as a raw food, picked right out of the shell. You can also make a traditional Native American dish (from which hickory derives its name) by cooking the nut meat in water until it becomes a fatty porridge. These nuts can be frozen for long term storage, used immediately, or kept in a cool dry spot for several months.

Have you found these nuts and eaten them? Please tell us all about it in the comments.