I like to buy fresh Italian & French bread, but we rarely finish it before it gets stale. Also, I often buy torpedo or kaiser rolls for parties, and of course I always buy too many because I don’t want to run out. These fresh breads and rolls tend to get stale very quickly. And these days, even those dry crusty end pieces from the loaf of sliced bread we use for sandwiches and toast seem a little precious to just toss in the trash. So what to do with all of those bread scraps?
I make Homemade Croutons! (yummy!)
I throw them in a zip-lock bag and stick it in the freezer. Any leftover pieces of bread that would normally get thrown out go in the bag. When I get a nice “collection” of assorted scraps in the bag, I make homemade croutons.
Cube up the bread and throw it in a big bowl.
(There’s those whole wheat crusts that no one wants to make a sandwich out of….)
Drizzle the bread cubes with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and dried Italian seasoning. Toss to coat the bread cubes. (At this point you will be tempted to sample- they smell and taste like the bread that you dip in seasoned olive oil at the Italian restaurant.)
Bake at 350 degrees about 10 minutes, stir, then continue baking until they are toasted (another 10 or 15 minutes.)
I love eating the crusts for sandwiches and this is a great recipe!!!!!! Thank you for sharing
Old bread is great in a strata for breakfast with egg, milk and whatever meat (bacon/sausage/ham) and veggie you like.
I keep mine in the freezer till I want either croutons for salads or for homemade stuffing.
I a have another idea for the frozen bread. Although I’ve never had bread pudding, I have looked at some recipes and watched enough cooking shows that it seems really easy to make and real tasty too, so I’m thinking I may try first so my bread supply doesn’t grow to far out of control for now.
As I have put rolls in my freezer this morning. It looks like I’m gonna need to purchase a small chest freezer soon too.
Back to the bread, my bread is all different at the moment as I have nine grain bread, wheat rolls and artisan white bread all together waiting to be eaten.
Wow, Karen, I sure do hope you’ve had the chance to try out some bread pudding with hot rum sauce. NOTHING better! ;-)
My partner is nuts about fresh bread and he is always tossing out bread that’s “too old” – I am so going to start doing this, it looks delicious!
Besides the coating you use, I also dump in garlic powder, onion powder and something spicy. Kids love to snack on croutons as I do.