Crispy bread croutons

Preparing croutons with stale bread is really simple. Here are our tips for making them in the oven or in the pan (and more).

Croutons are excellent for making soups and veloutés even richer and more substantial. However, it happens that partly out of laziness and partly out of carelessness, we end up buying them ready-made. Yet preparing homemade croutons is simple and represents an excellent way to use leftover bread from a few days.

In fact, we guarantee that once you discover how to make croutons you will stop buying them. For this purpose, in fact, bread rolls and loaves are equally good, as long as they are cut into uniform pieces. We will then reveal how to obtain excellent crostini in the oven and in the pan , but also how to use the air fryer and the microwave oven to obtain an excellent result.

• In the pan
• Baked
• In the air fryer
• Fried
• In the microwave
• Preparation tips
• Conservation

How to prepare the pan-fried croutons recipe

1. First, if you use a loaf of bread, remove the crust and cut it first into slices and then into cubes . In the case of already sliced ​​bread, simply cut it into cubes.
2. Season the bread with oil and a pinch of salt and cook them in a pan over high heat for 5 minutes, stirring often because they tend to burn rather quickly.
3. Once your crunchy croutons are ready, transfer them to a plate and let them cool before using them as you wish.

You can also prepare flavored croutons by simply adding aromatic herbs, preferably finely chopped, or spices to the pan. You can opt for 1 teaspoon of chopped rosemary or 1/2 teaspoon of paprika (or other spices to taste).

Baked croutons

1. To prepare baked croutons, the ingredients are the same. Remove the crust from the bread, cut it first into slices and then into cubes .
2. Season it with oil and salt and spread it on a baking tray lined with baking paper. If desired, at this stage, add finely chopped spices or aromatic herbs.
3. Bake at 200°C for 10 minutes , stirring occasionally.

Croutons in air fryer

As with the oven, also in this case the process is very quick and allows you to obtain extremely crunchy cubes of bread. In fact, they will cook at 200°C for 3-4 minutes , shaking the basket at least a couple of times. However, we will leave you all the details on preparing croutons in the air fryer in a separate article. Don't miss it because we reveal different ways to flavor them and they apply to all cooking techniques!

Fried croutons

Extremely crunchy, fried croutons are prepared by first heating the oil in a pan and only adding the bread later. You can use either olive oil or, for a more delicate flavour, even seed oil. The cooking time is about 4 minutes, making sure to turn them often to prevent them from burning. Fried they are excellent for enriching salads.

Microwave croutons

If you have already tried without success, know that there are a couple of tricks to prepare croutons in the microwave. The first is to use the grill function (without it it is difficult to make them crispy); the second instead consists of placing the croutons on the appropriate grill so as to prevent the condensation released from making them soft during cooking. Season them with a little oil and cook them in grill mode for 6 minutes, turning them halfway through.

If you are looking for an alternative to classic crostini to give a crunchy note to your dishes then we recommend you try crunchy chickpeas : they are amazing but be careful because one leads to another!

Homemade croutons: extra tips

• To prepare the croutons you can use the bread you prefer : wholemeal, loaves, baguette, homemade, cereal, black and even bread as long as it has a lot of crumbs.
• Remove the crust to prevent the croutons from taking on a bitter taste during cooking.
• The most suitable bread for croutons is stale bread, 2-3 days old. Just be careful that it is not too hard or you won't be able to cut it.
• Croutons are good with soups, stews, minestrone and salads.
• Once cold the croutons are even crunchier.
• The bread croutons can be prepared with any method but be careful because the slices are thin and cook first. For this reason it is best to keep the oven or air fryer temperature at 150°C.
• If you don't know how to flavor croutons, here are some ideas: with rosemary they are excellent for cream soups (particularly chickpea and pumpkin soups), with chilli pepper they go well with minestrone, spices such as curry, ginger and turmeric are great with the velvety soups having a more delicate flavour, aromatic herbs such as sage and rosemary are perfect for salads. Both fresh and dried herbs can be used.

Conservation

The croutons will keep in a paper bag for over 2 weeks.

Read also

Don't know what to do with stale bread? Here are some delicious recovery recipes