Are Cashews Nuts Or Legumes

Cashews are a fascinating food.

Are cashews nuts or legumes. A cashew forms at the base of a cashew apple which grows on a cashew apple tree. No matter how you answer the question Is a cashew a legume the fact remains that cashews are known as nuts in the culinary world. This definition includes seeds that are not technically nuts such as cashews.

They definitely look sort of like a nut but. The cashew seed is commonly considered a snack nut eaten on its own used in recipes or processed into cashew cheese or cashew butter. Botanically they are a master of disguise.

Why are cashews not a nut. Some of the nuts are Chestnut Acorns Hazelnuts Almond Cashew Walnuts etc. Legumes are rich in proteins and carbohydrates that means they provide a higher amount of energy.

The tree can grow as high as 14 m but the dwarf cultivars growing up to 6 m prove more profitable with earlier maturity and greater yields. Cashew trees are native to Brazils. Because they grow in a pod theyre technically a legume a family of plants that produce their fruit often beans in a pod and have more in common with snow peas than actual nuts.

As far as I know they are neither of the two. Botanically speaking nuts are noted for having only a single seed in the shell which is not attached and they can be part of a number of different plant families. They are actually legumes and are members of the pea family.

Today we are going to explore if a cashew is a nut or something else such as a seed or legume. They bear characteristics of both tree nuts and legumes but they are not botanically either of these. Thus roasted cashews become safe to handle with bare hands by workers who then mechanically shell the nuts to extract edible cashew kernels we find in the groceries.