To provide a method for roasting chestnut without using hot pebbles causing danger in the roasting work of chestnut and safely and easily giving readily crackable and uniformly roast chestnut having excellent luster and good taste and provide a roasting machine.

Chestnut can be roasted at a low temperature compared with conventional chestnut roasting method by heating a vessel having a ceramic layer on the inner surface from outside for easily roasting the chestnut with the radiated far infrared rays by a compact apparatus without using hot pebbles. The cracking of the top of chestnut shell is highly dependent upon the water content of the chestnut in roasting. Taking consideration of these findings, chestnuts and air-permeable porous ores or ceramics are charged at a prescribed ratio to a heating vessel having a ceramic layer on the inner surface and heated for a prescribed period, additional porous ores or ceramics impregnated with a water-soluble sugar are charged to the vessel and the heating of the vessel is continued for a prescribed period.