“It is important to know that once insects die, postmortem changes happen rapidly making them unpalatable very quickly. You have to cook them alive like you do a lobster.
Just before cooking, put your crickets in the refrigerator until you are ready to roast them. You don’t want to kill them, only slow their metabolism down so that they stop moving. This allows for arranging them on the cookie sheet with out them trying to get away.
Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Spread a bunch of pre-cooled live crickets out on a cookie sheet. Bake at low temperature for an hour or more until completely dry. Test by crushing a dried cricket with your fingers. If they do not seem completely dried out, roast them some more. However, be careful not to burn them as they taste terrible scorched. Let cool.
Dry Roasted Crickets have a nutty flavor and are very good eaten plain with a sprinkle of salt. They are also very tasty as a substitute for nuts in dessert and cookie recipes.”
Did I mention that we flash-froze cockroaches in my entomology class last Wednesday to stun them before we began to dissect them alive? When we got them out of the freezer, we were instructed to immediately cut off their legs, wings, and antennae in case they became active again during the dissection process. Some did.