Croutons
Homemade croutons are a fun and favorite addition of mine for salads, soups, and snacks. I like to keep an eye on the discount shelf at the back of my grocery store and pick up a stale loaf of bread to use for croutons when I see one. If you don’t have stale bread, it’s fine to use fresh, but they may take a minute or two longer to bake. The texture of sandwich bread doesn’t work well for these so I like to keep a loaf of bread handy in the freezer. Homemade croutons are easy and always worth the couple minutes it takes to make them!
My go-to crouton toppings are salt and Aleppo but they will be delicious with just about anything sprinkled on top. These croutons are intended to be eaten the day they’re baked. If you wanted to make them a day or two ahead of time, bake them until they are fully toasted with no give.
Croutons
Approx. 3 ½ cups stale bread, cubed
Olive oil
2 tsp Aleppo pepper
1 ½ – 2 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 425° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice the bread and cut into cubes. Spread the cubed bread onto the baking sheet. You should just about fill the baking sheet without overcrowding the pieces, see the pictures for reference if you aren’t sure how much to cut. Drizzle the bread generously with olive oil and sprinkle with Aleppo and salt. Toss everything together using your hands; your fingers will do a much better job evenly distributing the oil than a spatula or spoon will. There should be enough oil to lightly coat each piece, but not so much oil that the bread is sitting in pools of it.
Bake for 6-8 minutes (or about 9-11 minutes if using fresh bread) until the bread is nicely toasted but still has a little give to it. They will continue to crisp up as they cool.