Diced bread tossed in garlic butter and baked until dry and crisp. Three ingredients, twenty minutes, and day-old bread works considerably better than fresh.
Stale bread is the right bread
This is a recipe designed around bread nobody wants to eat any more. Fresh bread is mostly water, and water has to leave before anything can crisp, which is why fresh cubes spend fifteen minutes in the oven and come out chewy.
Bread a day or two old has already given up most of that water. It takes the butter without going soggy and dries into something properly brittle.
One layer on the tray
Spread the cubes out with space between them. Piled up, the ones in the middle sit in the steam coming off the ones around them and never dry.
A larger tray with everything in a single layer beats a small tray with everything heaped, every time.
They crisp as they cool
A crouton straight out of the oven often feels slightly soft, and the instinct is to put it back in. Wait five minutes instead.
The residual heat drives off the last of the moisture as it cools, and what felt underdone at minute fifteen is usually perfect by minute twenty. Judging them hot is how people end up with burnt croutons.
Butter and garlic are both optional
The ingredient list marks both as optional and means it. Bread cubes dried out in an oven are croutons: what the butter adds is flavour and a richer colour, and what the garlic adds is garlic.
The one thing to watch is the garlic burning. It goes into the melted butter for one minute over medium heat with continuous stirring, and no longer. Burnt garlic is bitter and it spreads that bitterness through every cube it touches.
More things to do with bread
- Homemade bread — where the stale bread comes from.
- Bread cake — the sweet way to use it up.
- Cream of carrot soup — somewhere to put them.
- Cauliflower cream soup — another bowl that wants croutons.
Croutons FAQ
Day-old bread. Fresh bread holds too much water, takes far longer to dry and tends to go leathery instead of crisp. Anything too stale for a sandwich is ideal here.
About 15 minutes at 180°C, but check them often. Ovens vary and the gap between golden and burnt is a couple of minutes.
Either they were piled up rather than spread in one layer, so they steamed each other, or you judged them straight out of the oven. Croutons finish crisping as they cool.
Yes. Both the butter and the garlic are marked optional in this recipe, and plain bread cubes dried in the oven are still croutons. They will be drier and keep longer.
The recipe says so directly. Dried herbs go into the butter the same way. Add them off the heat so they do not scorch.
About a week in an airtight container, as long as they went in completely cool. Any warmth trapped inside turns to condensation and softens them.
Yes, in a skillet, which is what the recipe's own note suggests. It needs more attention because only the faces touching the pan brown, so they have to be turned.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter (optional)
- 1 clove garlic (crushed or finely chopped, optional)
- 5 cups diced bread (day-old is best)
Notas
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat and add the garlic. Cook for 1 minute, stirring continuously so it does not burn.
- Add the bread cubes and toss them until they are coated all over with the butter.
- Spread them on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for about 15 minutes, until they look crisp and dry.
- Check on them often so they do not burn. Take them out and let them cool, which is when they finish crisping.
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