How To: Make Croutons

Homemade croutons are a great way to use up stale bread! I've made croutons from both homemade and store bought bread. This particular loaf was lost in the freezer for a while and came out with serious freezer burn.

This is a basic crouton making recipe. There are many versions/varieties in cookbooks and on the web. Feel free to mix it up with different spices.




Ingredients: Stale bread, butter and seasonings.




Preheat the oven and put butter in a baking dish. Then put the baking dish in the oven to melt the butter.




Slice your bread up into crouton-like squares.




When the butter melts pull the pan out of the oven and dump the bread in.




The seasonings. So, you can use ANYTHING: Garlic salt, Parmesan cheese, parsley, pretty much any combination of anything. I'm cheating and using a pre-blended mix.




Put your seasonings on your croutons, as liberally as you want.




Toss it all together, making sure the butter is covering at least most of the bread. This is what keeps your seasonings on your croutons.




If it looks like you'll need more butter, go ahead, add some more.

Now here comes the tricky part. Most recipes tell you to cook your croutons at 300 or 325 degrees, stirring every 5-10 minutes or so until browned. But that takes way too long for me. So I cook mine at 400. But you have to be very watchful to make sure they don't burn!




Oops. If yours gets a little toasty and you're picky, just toss the burned ones. Or eat them. Yum.
Whatever temperature you cook the croutons at, make sure you stir them every once in a while so all the croutons brown evenly.




So you didn't waste your bread and now you have a reason to eat salad tonight! It's a win-win!