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How To Make Homemade Croutons

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Learn how to make homemade croutons from scratch with this simple, customizable croutons recipe.

The BEST Homemade Croutons Recipe

Have leftover bread?

Make croutons! 

Homemade croutons are just about the easiest thing ever to make, and a million times better than anything you can buy at the store. They’re also easy to customize with whatever seasonings you might be craving, they can be made with any kind of bread that you have on hand (including gluten-free), and they’re easy to make as large or small, soft or crispy, plain or seasoned as you might prefer. Plus, if you’re trying to eat more greens in your life, I’m convinced that having a fresh batch of croutons around is one of the best motivators to toss together a quick salad. Or they’re also delicious for topping a fresh bowl of tomato soup or gazpacho (<– new recipe coming tomorrow, stay tuned!) this time of year.

So grab that leftover bread, and let’s bake up a quick batch!

HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE CROUTONS | 1-MINUTE VIDEO

Bread for Homemade Croutons Recipe

Homemade Croutons Ingredients:

To make homemade croutons, you just need three main ingredients:

  • Bread: Ideally at least a day or two old, any variety will do.
  • Olive oil: Or melted butter, if you prefer.
  • Seasonings: Totally up to you! I always, always add garlic powder to my croutons. Plus salt and black pepper. But any other seasonings are up to you! I often turn to Italian seasoning or blackening seasoning, and will occasionally sprinkle on some Parmesan cheese too.

How To Make Homemade Croutons

How To Make Croutons:

Simply:

  1. Dice your bread: Choose whatever size of cubes you prefer, either cut with a knife or torn into small chunks by hand. It’s just important that the croutons be uniformly sized so that they cook evenly.
  2. Toss with oil and seasonings: In a large bowl, drizzle the bread evenly with the oil and seasonings. Then toss until evenly combined.
  3. Spread out on a baking sheet: Turn the croutons out onto a parchment-covered baking sheet, and spread out in a single layer.
  4. Bake until crispy: Flipping the croutons once halfway through baking. Then baking until they croutons reach your desired level of crispiness. (If they start to get too brown, lower the heat and let them bake lower and slower.)
  5. Serve or store: Then serve immediately. Or let the croutons cool until they reach room temperature, then store in a sealed container for up to 2 weeks.

Homemade Croutons Recipe

Ways To Use Homemade Croutons:

Some of my favorite ways to use homemade croutons include:

  • Salads: Especially any kind of Caesar salad, or my favorite Everyday Salad.
  • Soups: Especially hot tomato soup, or authentic Spanish gazpacho (recipe coming soon!)
  • Stuffings/Casseroles: Especially around the holidays

And of course, anytime you need breadcrumbs, just use a rolling pin or food processor to break those croutons up into your preferred size of breadcrumbs.

Authentic Gazpacho with Homemade Croutons

Enjoy, everyone!

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How To Make Homemade Croutons

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 103 reviews
  • Prep Time: 5 minutes
  • Cook Time: 20 minutes
  • Total Time: 25 minutes
  • Yield: 4 -6 cups 1x

Description

Learn how to make homemade croutons from scratch with this simple, customizable croutons recipe.


Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 loaf of bread (about 12 ounces), cut into 3/4-inch cubes
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning, homemade or store-bought
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 375°F.  Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
  2. In a large bowl, evenly drizzle the olive oil over the bread chunks.  Then evenly sprinkle the Italian seasoning, garlic powder, salt and pepper over the bread.  Toss gently until well-combined.
  3. Spread the bread cubes out in a single layer on a baking sheet.
  4. Bake until golden, turning once halfway through cooking in order to brown all sides of the croutons.  Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the cubes, so watch to be sure that they do not burn. (Mine generally take between 15-20 minutes.)
  5. Remove from oven, and let cool completely.  Use immediately, or store in an air-tight container for up to 1 week.

Notes

*Recipe updated in July 2018.

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158 comments on “How To Make Homemade Croutons”

  1. I’m gonna tryem today

  2. Perfect recipe. The croutons were so delicious straight out of the oven. But I finally found the restraint to keep from eating them as I needed it for the Caesar Salad for Thanksgiving. I followed the recipe, but cut back on the garlic powder to 1/2 a teaspoon. Subbed 1 tablespoon of olive oil for garlic olive oil. Really good and simple recipe.






  3. My olive oil sprayer worked great for evenly coating the cubes. Croutons were done after 15 mins. Great recipe!






  4. great way to save on looking for the stuff in stores. Wonderful and thank you!!!!!






  5. So easy. So good. Leave some for the salad!






    • I couldn’t find croutons at the store, so this was a great how-to. Used a sturdier French loaf with a good crust, seasoned with garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and parsley. 8 mins per side and they came out perfect, I might never buy croutons again!






    • Lovely recipe – so easy and very tasty!






  6. I love this recipe. It’s super simple to make and most importantly, delicious!






  7. Very nice!






  8. Thank you for the recipe! The croutons were awesome!

  9. do they have to be stale when i put them in the oven or can they still be soft/fresh?

    • Use any kind of bread you like, fresh or stale, whole wheat, rye or white. Fresh brea$ is harder to cut into cubes and will take a little longer too cook.

  10. I’m learning to bake bread and the last batch was dry and dense this recipe was perfect for not wasting and giving my bread fail new life.






  11. This recipe worked perfectly for me. I threw a bit of Romano cheese in the mix for extra yum.






  12. Oh its just so delightful!






  13. I used rye bread and Cyprus white flake sea salt. Delicious and simple!






  14. This turned out SO. GOOD. I used some sourdough bread and dried dill. I baked for 16 min (flipping halfway through). Thanks!






  15. Made several times . I change up what I put on the the bread . But garlic powder is a must have. Easy to make and saves money.






  16. I make home made bread and when I’m about to bake another loaf, I freeze the heels of the old bread and use them for this recipe. These are great croutons and no chemicals! Thanks.






  17. Yum 🤤 turned out awesome. Wish I could post the photo. Already ate a bunch 😊.

  18. Hi, I noticed that there are two different storage time recommendations listed, both one and two weeks. I am wondering which is most accurate if using an airtight container? Thanks for the clarification!

  19. Delicious! And so easy. Why did I ever buy croutons from the store?! Thank you for a great recipe!






  20. I decided to try this without the oil. My favorite high fiber bread disappeared so I’ve been trying other breads. Costco has Carbonaut so tried it. It is just ok as toast but the texture is way too moist and spongy for untoasted use.

    I thought maybe the moisture would hold the seasonings. I added a couple of extra teaspoons – zatar and onion powder – and dropped most of the salt.

    Tossed in a ziploc and all the spice stuck. Baked at 350F convection for 10 minutes. Flipped another, 15 minutes. Let them cool about 1/2 hr. They are still a bit chewy on the inside so later I put them in with lunch at 450F for 5 minutes. Just the right crunchiness now and a nice light flavor. They are not rock hard like some croutons.

    Will definitely make these again. Very high fibre, very tasty croutons!

  21. Delish. Had a stale baguette and tried your recipe. Perfect!






  22. Love these croutons came out great, thank you






    • Lovely recipe can’t wait to try it . Only thing is I don’t want to use a whole loaf so how much oil would I need for say 4 slices of bread .just to add to 4 wraps .
      Thank you

  23. Just made the croutons and ate half of them already. So delicious!! Thanks for a great recipe.






  24. simple, excellent croutons. I suggest making them slightly bigger, like 2×2 inch size.






  25. Fantastic recipe, quick and easy. I didn’t do a single layer, basically a double layer, and they turned out great. I did stir them at 15 minutes, put them back for 5 more minutes. I used leftover rolls and French bread, pretty much anything will do. Dinner guests are always blown away by this recipe, homemade croutons are a nice touch.






  26. I used Grandma Sycamore’s Sourdough Bread (best ever!) I did everything the same and I added some dill for some zing! Wow are these amazing :)
    Thanks gimmesomeoven.com!!






  27. Very nice recipe chef 👍👌👏. Give me some croutons 😊😋. Thank you for your effort 🌞😎.






  28. Really good! I accidentally bought both white rye pre-sliced sandwich bread and a rye loaf from the bakery and since I don’t like freezing everything I thought I’d use the extra loaf for croutons.
    I did double garlic, in addition to everything else added rosemary and lemon pepper.






  29. This worked even with gluten-free bread (although I took 2 minutes off the cooking time because they looked done).






  30. Why have I never made croutons at home before?! This recipe has made me a believer. Used a ciabatta baguette on the last day it was good and turned out perfectly. Made it a second time with a frozen baguette that I thawed a little and worked great too.






  31. Great recipe! I made them this evening 😊 Thank you for sharing!






  32. Made these using sweet Hawaiian hamburger buns, because that’s all I had on hand. All I can say is these were hands-down, the best croutons I have ever had. I eat a lot of salads and I’ve had a lot of croutons and no others have compared to these.






  33. After our Thanksgiving feasting we decided we needed more salads and soups in our lives. We had a leftover loaf of bread and found this recipe with great reviews, its super EZ and gives our salads a gourmet punch! So Tasty!!






  34. Can I make this with multigrain sandwich bread?

  35. Just wanted to say thank you for this recipe! I’d made a loaf of bread and had a decent chunk leftover- it made a perfect batch of croutons! I’m pretty proud. Lol. Thanks again!






  36. Any luck on freezing the croutons and baking when ready? I have a stale loaf of beer bread, but am not making a crouton worthy meal for a little while.

  37. Not sure exactly what went wrong, but I had to take mine out a few minutes early because they were near-blackened. Feels like they must have been in way too long, or at too high a heat. Either way, that’s half a baguette wasted.

  38. I used everything bagel seasoning with 1/8 c olive oil & 4 tablespoons melted butter. I sprinkled with some onion & garlic powder & black pepper. They are delicious! I love them in salads, tomato soup, ramen soup, chili






  39. I took a dredge, drilled out the holes to 1/8 of an inch, to accommodate the spice size, and used that to evenly spread the spices over the croutons. Before that, I bought a California Olive Oil aerosol extra virgin olive oil sprayer to evenly coat the croutons. Everything came out wonderfully.






  40. This was a good and easy recipe. I used garlic infused olive oil that I had on hand and left over the garlic powder in the recipe. My husband wanted to eat them as a snack.






  41. So easy….so tasty…had to hide from the family so there would be some for supper!






  42. I make my own bread and had some leftover. This recipe was easy and it was delicious! We’re never going back to store bought. Thank you!






  43. Made the recipe exactly as written. I have a new oven so still getting used to it so opted for 12 minutes first and they were dry but needed a little browning so kept a close eye on them for another 2 minutes and they are perfect. Thank you so much.