Crispy Homemade Garlic Croutons

Crispy homemade garlic croutons? Yes, please!

I’m gonna be honest. I don’t have leftover bread often. Especially if it’s a good crusty homemade loaf. But strange things happen sometimes, and well, I end up with a bit of kind of stale bread.

There are lots of things you can do with stale bread. French toast comes to mind. You could make breadcrumbs. Or croutons.

Homemade croutons are tough though. How often have you tried to get the hard, crunchy croutons like you would get in a bag in the salad aisle? Only to end up with something with kinda crispy edges, but with a soft chew in the middle. It’s a real problem.

Now, these can be good. But if you want crunch, this isn’t the way to get it. Instead, these crispy homemade garlic croutons deliver the crunch factor, without any other effort. The secret is that you just cut the bread a different way. That’s literally it. Instead of cutting it into squares, you simply slice it into extra thin pieces, and then chop those up, until you have thin pieces that are just less bready in the middle. Because that’s the problem with the squares. The outside gets crispy, but the inside is too soft, so it just doesn’t crisp up. This way, you get the best of both worlds. Olive oil and avocado oil both work well to crisp these up nicely.

And as a bonus, you can do this with fresh bread. I mean, stale bread helps, but it’s not necessary if you just cut your bread into slices. So if you want a salad (or even just a crunchy crouton snack —  no judgment!) you can make it without planning.

You can use these with whatever bread you have, but a good crusty Italian loaf or something without sugar works best. Don’t try to make croutons with Wonder bread. I mean, you probably can, but just don’t.

These are great on salads, of course. But also soups, stews, or as a topping on mac n cheese or your favorite pasta. But make extra because you’ll probably be snacking on a few before dinner!