Turn Stale Bread to Delicious Croutons- Stale Bread Recipes

Turn Stale Bread to Delicious Croutons- Stale Bread Recipes

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve bought a baguette or bread of some type that I meant to serve and consume within days but ended up having it lay around until it was brick hard. I’ve done another post on what to do with stale bread in terms of simply reviving it but here’s a specific idea on how to turn stale bread into delicious croutons that you can add to salads or soups for an extra crunch. It’s super easy to work with stale bread of any kind, whether it’s leftover baguette or regular bread (as long as it hasn’t gone moldy). I didn’t put any specific amounts on this “recipe” because it’s pretty fool-proof and I wanted all of you to be able to do this with any amount of stale bread.

Ingredients
Stale bread of any kind
Olive Oil
Salt
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Mixed Seasoning Blend
(Use any of your favorite herbs and spices in addition to or in place of the garlic, onion and mixed seasonings)

Method

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cut up the stale bread or baguette into small or medium sized cubes. Place the cubed bread on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil so that all the cubes are lightly covered with the oil.

Sprinkle a light dusting of salt, garlic powder onion powder, mixed seasoning blend and/or any assortment of your favorite herbs and spices over the cubes so that all of them are lightly coated. My only cautionary advice here is to remember that many of the powdered spices, like garlic powder for example, typically already come mixed with salt so you’ll want to be aware so that you don’t end up adding too much salt.

Bake in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes. If you prefer your croutons to be very lightly golden, stick to 10 minutes. If you like the croutons a darker golden brown like mine in the picture below, do 15 minutes. Remove from oven immediately and allow to cool down completely before storing in a zip lock bag or air-tight container. This will last for a solid 1 month if stored properly.

After drizzling olive oil and sprinkling with salt and spices.

Final Croutons- golden brown after 15 minutes at 375 degrees.