Wednesday, June 23, 2010

make your own | croutons


Do you ever end up with a single hot dog bun, hamburger bun or heel of bread and wonder what to do with it? Here's a simple and tasty solution -- make croutons.

I found 3 hot dog buns, 2 sandwich buns and 2 heels of bread in my bread basket. Not wanting them to go to waste was my incentive for making croutons. I hate throwing food away. You too can avoid food waste.

Here's a simple recipe.

Cube bread/buns. For every 5 slices of bread, you'll need:
2 T butter
2 T olive oil
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 c. finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Melt butter in skillet with olive oil. When butter is melted, add the garlic and cook on medium heat for about 1 minute. Turn off heat. Add bread cubes and stir thoroughly. At this point you can place the oregano, thyme and cheese in a paper bag or heavy ziploc bag. Add bread and shake. Place on a cookie sheet or pizza pan and bake at 300 for 30 minutes or until nicely toasted. Stir after 15 minutes. Allow to cool and then place in a storage container. I keep mine in the freezer and take out what I need as I need it.

Easy and quite possibly the best croutons you've ever eaten. They give salads a nice crunch and if you need seasoned bread crumbs, it's easy to place them in a ziploc bag and crush them.

6 comments:

Michelle @ Give a Girl a Fig said...

I do this same thing...homemade croutons are the BEST.

Anonymous said...

i don't love croutons but josh does! I'll need to remember this.

Anonymous said...

mmmmm. homemade is the best.

CALAMITY JANE said...

ok, you seriously have all the best ideas! i'll have to make these for my husband - he loves croutons and i have lots of random bread parts left over :)

Anonymous said...

great idea.

Anonymous said...

i make these all the time, i love them. there usually aren't very many left to put on the salad :)