let us speak of caramelized walnuts

[joneschick]

they've been showing up in some wonderful restaurant salads so I decided to make my own. I googled and found a couple of different ways of going about it. Basically, just coat the walnuts with sugar and a little salt and oil, then into a 350 oven for 15 minutes. They weren't as crunchy as I would have liked but they were delicious in the salad:

mixed greens
cold cajun chicken breast
mushrooms
cherry tomatoes
dried cranberries
gorgonzola
Newman's Own Basalmic Vinaigrette

[Dora]

1. They also make a great addition to fruit salad.

I like to use caramelized pecans on fresh/dried fruit salads.

[mtnester]

2. Carmelized walnuts on top of some brie

oh my

[joneschick]

5. swoon. that is all, just swoon.

[Warpy]

3. The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking

had a recipe for dry fried pecans that might just work with your walnuts. First, soak the nuts in boiling water for about half an hour. Then spread them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet and dry them in a slow oven (200) for about half an hour. At this point, you could coat them with your mixture and let them finish in the oven. Tropp's recipe stir fried them in a wok in a little oil with salt and sugar, which wasn't terribly satisfactory when it came to coating the nuts but which was very good, nonetheless.

Soaking and drying may be essential steps in the process.

[The empressof all]

4. Try coating them in egg white

That might help with the crunchy texture you are looking for.

Egg white, then sugar and Cinnamon

[bettyellen]

6. froth up and thin the egg white with booze or juice

you don;t need oil except on bottom of the pan then.
i use bourbon on my pecans. not sure what would be nice on walnuts.