With this kick of trying (and failing) to eat out less and at home more, I wanted to spend the weekend making a few things at home, rather than spending the money on needless extras–Things like granola bars or croutons.
Yes, croutons. I’m one of those people that stops eating a salad the minute the croutons are gone. It’s not so much that I need the little cubes of bread or anything, but I like the additional “crunch.” There is nothing worse than a salad full of slimy, soggy greens. Say what you will about poor, virtually-devoid-of-nutrition Iceberg lettuce, but it’s my favorite green, because it’s so crisp and crunchy. And I like a lot of croutons with it. So I made some Easy Homemade Croutons.
I like homemade croutons because you can customize them however you’d like. Whatever kind of bread you want/have on hand, whatever seasonings you like, heck, you can even control the shape!
I prefer to tear my bread, just because you get more crunchy ends when you toast them. I like to keep things fairly simple and use olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the torn bread in a large bowl. Drizzle the olive oil over top, and toss gently with a spatula or spoon. Season with the garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper, and toss again, making sure most of the bread pieces are coated. Place the bread on a baking sheet, making sure the pieces are in a single layer. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, toss the croutons, and bake for 10-15 minutes more, until crisp and golden. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Occasionally I’ll toss the bread with half olive oil and half melted butter, but I didn’t do that this time around.
Easy Homemade Croutons
Ingredients
Instructions
In spite of that, I totally could just snack on these, rather than adding them to a salad!
oooh such a great idea!!! I’d love to put some of these beauties in a salad! mm!
I will be doing exactly that this evening. :)
Croutons are the reason I eat salad! The crunchier, the better! Yum.
Agreed. Throw a little cheese on there, too & I’m in heaven!
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