Homemade Croutons
Diced bread tossed in garlic butter and baked until dry and crisp. Three ingredients, twenty minutes, and both the butter and the garlic are optional if you only want plain toasted cubes.
Servings: 6
Calories: 194kcal
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter optional
- 1 clove garlic crushed or finely chopped, optional
- 5 cups diced bread day-old is best
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.
Notes
Day-old bread is what this wants. Fresh bread holds too much water: it takes far longer to dry out and tends to go leathery rather than crisp. Anything stale enough that you would not want it in a sandwich is ideal here. Spread them in a single layer with space between the cubes. Piled up, they steam each other and the ones in the middle stay soft. They also finish crisping as they cool, so a crouton that seems slightly soft coming out of the oven is usually fine five minutes later. Both the butter and the garlic are marked optional in the recipe, and that is genuine: plain cubes of bread dried in the oven are still croutons. Herbs can replace the garlic. Stored airtight, they keep for a week.
Nutrition
Calories: 194kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 9g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 1g | Sodium: 330mg | Potassium: 91mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 335IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 68mg | Iron: 2mg