Do you love homemade croutons? Make delicious buttery croutons in your air fryer. You can make flavorful crispy seasoned croutons in about 10 minutes in your air fryer.
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Turn Ordinary Bread into Flavorful Croutons
You don’t need to buy fancy bread to make these salad toppings everyone loves. Turn ordinary sandwich bread into delicious crispy croutons. You could use leftover baguettes, loaves of French bread, or other bread.
It doesn’t matter if the bread is white, wheat, or pumpernickel. All you need is a few slices of leftover bread, butter, and some seasonings and you can get started.
Stale bread is perfect!
Have you ever had a loaf of stale bread? Perhaps you have a loaf of bread and it’s past the point of making sandwiches, as long as the bread is not moldy you can use it to make croutons. Never eat bread after it has turned moldy. Moldy bread is not safe to eat even if you cut off the moldy parts.
Recipe Ingredients
Here’s a list of what you need:
- Bread – use your favorite bread. Some of my favorite types of bread to use are sourdough, whole wheat, honestly, this is a great way to use up day-old bread.
- Butter – you could use olive oil, or avocado oil if you want to make this recipe vegan
- Parsley – you could use an Italian seasoning blend if you desire
- Onion powder
- Seasoned salt
- Garlic powder
How to Make Croutons
- Grab four or five slices of bread. Then grab either a serrated knife or a very sharp knife. Cutting the bread slices with a serrated knife is ideal, as the bread won’t tear.
- Cut the bread into bite-sized bread cubes.
- Melt some butter, and then grab some seasonings. I like to use onion powder, parsley, garlic salt, and seasoned salt. I combine the butter and seasonings together in a medium-sized bowl.
- After the seasoned butter is ready, carefully stir in the bread, and stir to coat very well.
- Toss the seasoned bread into the basket of your air fryer, and cook these up for about 7 minutes. These will begin to smell fragrant.
- After air frying for 7 minutes, remove the air fryer basket, and allow the croutons to cool to room temperature You will have a delicious bowl of homemade croutons. Enjoy these on your favorite salad or soup.
No Air Fryer? No problem. Make Homemade Croutons on Your Stovetop
While this recipe is developed for an air fryer, you can prepare this same recipe by heating up a large skillet to medium, tossing in the seasoned bread, and cooking it for 5 to 7 minutes.
You will need to stir the bread every 30 seconds or so. The bread will brown. So you can make these on the stovetop.
Other uses for these crunchy croutons
You may want to use this air fryer croutons recipe for other dishes than just salads. One of my favorite ways to savory croutons is as a topping on your favorite soups. Soups I love croutons on are:
- Creamy tomato soup
- French onion soup
- Cheddar cheese beer soup
- Gazpacho
- Broccoli cheese soup
You can also use crispy air fryer croutons in recipes such as your favorite stuffing recipe, or in any recipe that requires bread crumbs such as your favorite meatloaf recipe.
How to store leftover croutons
I know you are going to love these more than store-bought croutons, so you will want to save these. Make sure they are at room temperature, and then store them in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Need more recipes for your air fryer? Check out these air fryer recipes.
Use Croutons on These Salads
More Recipes for Stale bread
Be sure to check out more of my delicious homemade salads and easy bread recipes.
Air Fryer Croutons
Equipment
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air fryer
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serrated knife
Ingredients
- 4 slices bread
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
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Preheat air fryer to 390 degrees.
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Cut 4 slices of bread into bite-sized pieces.
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Melt butter, and place butter into a medium-sized bowl.
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Add 1 teaspoon parsley, 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt, 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder to the melted butter. Stir well.
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Add bread to the bowl and carefully stir to coat the bread so that it is coated by the seasoned butter.
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Place buttered bread into the air fryer basket.
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Cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until the bread is toasted.
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Serve immediately.
