Croutons are kryptonite to me.

For real.

I can not resist a good, garlicky, buttery, sometimes cheesy crouton… but I don’t always love the icky stuff (preservatives, artificial flavors, etc) in commercially bought croutons so sometimes I make my own.

Last week my Utah besties came to visit. We saw Ed Sheeran (absolutely amaaaaaaazing) in concert at Mile High Stadium (Empower Field at Mile High), wandered and explored and ate entirely too much good food.

On Sunday we had a family dinner at my house and I made Papa’s Mexican Steak for everyone and I gave Kim, Tahne, and Chris a lesson on my No Knead Bread. We devoured one loaf of bread on Monday after we baked it and I had the second loaf left that B and I did not eat. So, I decided to turn it into homemade croutons.

Homemade croutons are CRAZY easy to make. You can flavor them any way that you like. In this house we are huge fans of garlic buttery croutons so that’s what I did this time.

To make homemade croutons, you just need three super basic ingredients:

• Bread: At least a day or two old, I prefer country white bread
• Some Type of Fat: Any neutral flavored oil. I prefer a combo of olive oil and butter
• Spices: These are totally customizable! I always always use garlic powder, salt and black pepper. You can add onion powder, rosemary, an Italian herb blend, and you can even use cheese powder or finely powdered parmesan or asiago cheese.

Homemade croutons come together so easily and quickly. I think the prep process took me 20 minutes to slice the bread and mix up the spices. Here’s how…

• Cube your bread evenly so the croutons cook fairly evenly.
• Drizzle with the fat and spices and toss to coat.
• Spread out the cubes on a parchment lined baking sheet (or two… they need air to circulate around them to properly dry). I needed two baking sheets.
• Bake until crispy and crunchy, baby! Bake the croutons at 375 F for about 20-25+ minutes. You will want to stir them a couple of times through the baking process.
• Let cool completely… if you still have some soft croutons you can lower the oven temp to about 300 F and bake a little longer. Watch them so they don’t burn.

Can you make these in an air fryer?

Oh yes!! Follow all the instructions as written, then to bake them simply pop a portion in the basket or basket tray of your air fryer and bake at 375 F for 5 – 7 minutes. Depending on the size of your AF basket/tray you may need to do this in batches. You can toss the croutons halfway through to help them cook evenly.

I hope you try these! They are soooo easy and so delicious! Plus, we are coming up on soups and stews season and who doesn’t love a good crunchy crouton on their soup?

Garlic Butter & Cracked Pepper Croutons

Erin

Delicious, melt in your mouth buttery garlic croutons that are perfect for soups, salads, and snacks!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Ingredients

  

• 700 grams White bread, diced * * this is about 1 recipe of my no knead bread – see notes
• 1/2 C Butter, melted
• 3 Tbs Olive oil (or other neutral flavored oil)
• 1 tsp Black pepper, cracked
• 1 – 1.5 tsp Kosher salt if using reg table salt use less salt
• 1 – 1.5 Tbs Garlic powder
• 1.5 tsp Onion powder
• 2 tsp Parsley, dried

Instructions

 

Oven Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375 F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Cube day or two old bread into equal size cubes and place in a big bowl. Yes, keep the crusts, that's the best part!
• Melt butter. Add olive oil, pepper, salt, garlic powder, onion powder and parsley,whisk
• Pour butter mixture over cubed bread and toss in the bowl until all the bread is well coated.
• Place onto a parchment lined baking sheets and spread out evenly. Allow room for air to circulate around the cubes. If you crowd them they will just sweat and not dry out.
• Bake until crispy, stirring every so often – about 20-30 mins, total time depends on how dry your bread is to start.

Air Fryer Instructions

• Pop seasoned bread cubes into your air fryer basket/basket tray and bake at 375 F for 5 – 7 minutes or until desired crispyness. Toss halfway through as needed.

Notes

Written recipe for my no knead white bread  (Yes, I need to update the photos… they did not transfer over when I converted to the new blog . Ugh):
https://www.mycreativeescape.com/no-need-to-knead-soups-on-lazy-food/

Youtube video instructions for my no knead bread:
https://youtu.be/QW__x5et_tI