Here is a straight up simple recipe that you may enjoy making with your children. If the adult handles the cutting and the oven work the youngsters can have some fun with the seasoning and mixing and in the end they will have a somewhat healthy bowl of croutons that they can put on a salad, float in a bowl of soup or even eat as a snack.
Not Fancy-Schmancy Anymore
We eat salad almost every night. One of the things we like to put in our salad are croutons.
Now in the late 1970’s when I was working my way up the brigade ranks in the professional kitchens of northern New Jersey, croutons were one of the exotic ingredients along with anchovy paste and coddled egg that were reserved for table-side-prepared Caesar Salad. Today, however you can get croutons in any supermarket in the U.S. and since we are essentially talking about stale bread, you can get a whole bag of them for about a dollar and a half or a little more. And that is what most people, my family included, typically do. Then, one day, my wife took a look at the ingredients and noticed that the brand we were using included added sugar.
We wondered why one would add sugar to croutons and we could not come up with a reasonable explanation so we decided to start making our own.
Here is how we do it. Cube the bread, season it, oil it and slow bake it for 20 to 30 minutes. Simple. Store them in a bag or a food container and enjoy them for several weeks or more. Do we still buy store-made? Sure. If we are pressed for time or if we see a “new” flavor that we may want to hack for ourselves, but generally we are munching the home-made variety.
This is an easy recipe that yields a great result. We normally use white bread but often add in slices of rye, pumpernickel or grain bread. In addition to using croutons to top our salad we also enjoy using them to garnish soups-especially Green Split Pea Soup.
Sure, we all realize that similar to making our own bread crumbs, making croutons is a great way to keep stale bread from going to waste but as an added bonus we can also make use of those spices that are getting close to their expiration dates, so hack away, experiment with the seasoning and let us know what you come up with!!
Croutons
Ingredients
- 10 Slices Bread White, Rye, Pumpernickel, Grain or any as you choose.
- 1 Oz Grated Cheese Such as Pecorino Romano
- 1 Tbsp Olive Oil
- ¼ Tsp Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Paprika. Amounts of each are to your own taste.
Instructions
- Move rack to middle of oven and preheat to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Dice bread in ½ inch cubes and transfer to mixing bowl. (I find it easier to dice the bread if it is frozen but unfrozen is fine if you prefer.)
- Sprinkle the cubed bread with your favorite seasonings. We like salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano, basil, and rosemary but you can use anything you like or even use up aging spices from your spice rack.
- Sprinkle paprika and grated cheese on bread and mix until all cubes are coated.
- Splash olive oil on cubes, mix well and transfer to a cookie sheet.
- Place bread cubes in oven for 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes flip croutons to assist in even cooking and return to oven for 5 minutes. Continue to cook croutons checking for doneness every five minutes. Croutons are done when the are slightly browned and dry inside.
- Allow to cool completely before storing in a sealed container for several weeks or more.