Usually, walnuts have a mild nutty scent. If they smell more like used cooking oil or stale oil, they're stale. So, in most cases, you'll want to dispose of them. If the walnuts look good, smell them.
If they still have that fantastic nutty smell, they're still fresh. However, if they smell a little sour, like paint thinner, it's best to avoid eating it. To determine if the nuts have spoiled, sniff them. Fresh walnuts should smell slightly nutty.
The bad guys smell like paint thinner.
Fresh shelled walnuts
should feel heavy when shaken, and the grain should not ring. Examine the shell for small wormholes, which expose the nut to air and cause spoilage. If the nuts have gone stale, throw them away.When it comes to deciding if walnuts have gone bad, how you tell depends on whether they are shelled or shelled. If you can't tell by the smell of your nuts if they've gone rancid or not, then you can try a little taste test to determine the same. Break a piece of your nut and eat it. The taste and flavor of the nut immediately repel you.
The taste of stale nuts is an unpleasant bitter or bitter taste. If that's what your nuts taste like, spit them out immediately and discard the rest of the broth. Because they can go rancid if not stored properly, the best way to store walnuts is to buy shelled walnuts and put them in the refrigerator or even freeze them. But sometimes you may find that they are too bitter for your palate and you start to wonder if the nuts spoil.
In other words, instead of relying on the printed date, you should do a quality check on your nuts and go from there. You can put the walnuts in the fridge as is, as long as the package is not open; there is no need to wrap them further. Because the shell serves as an excellent protective barrier, shelled walnuts survive longer and have fewer storage requirements. Walnuts freeze perfectly and freezing them is a great way to ensure that shelled walnuts last as long as possible.
Although shelled walnuts may be more practical, shelled walnuts include their protective barrier, which means you don't have to worry as much about your storage methods. However, if you have shelled walnuts, you'll need to use some of your senses to determine if they've gone rancid. A healthy shelled nut weighs when you pick it up, and when you shake it, you can't hear the movement of the grain inside the nut. Nuts can take on the smell and taste of other foods, so keep them away from foods such as fish, onions, or cabbage.
If you store the nuts properly, you can enjoy them whenever you want without having to worry about whether your nuts have spoiled. Expect shelled walnuts to last a year in the pantry and about 1 to 2 months past their expiration date. The University of California guidelines are a little more relaxed and state that shelled walnuts last four months, while shelled walnuts last three months in the pantry.
