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
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter melted
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 4 slices bread cut into bite-sized pieces
Instructions
- Preheat the air fryer to 390°F.
- In a medium-sized bowl, combine the butter, parsley, onion powder, seasoned salt, and garlic salt. Stir well.
- Add the bread to the bowl and carefully stir to coat the bread with the seasoned butter.
- Place buttered bread into the air fryer basket and cook for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the bread is toasted. Serve immediately.
STP
I was looking to use some hot dog buns past their prime and this was perfect! I highly recommend. I used an Italian season dry spice and garlic powder as that’s what I had on hand. I will be making these again!
Stephanie Manley
I am going to try to flavor my hot dogs as well! Great idea!
Terri Ponicn
So quick, so tasty. Many of them didn’t make it into the salad. lol
Scott Winterburn
Made these today and added some Cajun Seasoning to add a little kick-BEST EVER! Will never buy store made again-THANK YOU!
Peg
I have made these many times exactly as written. We love these! Can’t get any better!
Mary
These croutons are the BEST! I do not like store bought croutons but enjoy them at restaurants where they make them in-house. I am glad to have a recipe this easy so I can have these at home on salads. Also good on soups and just for snacking!
Sharon
What kind of bread? You can use french bread or Texas toast?
Stephanie Manley
You can use any type of bread, it does not matter.
C E
This was so easy. I didn’t even do any measurements. I love it! 5 stars.
Cathy
Can you use ghee butter for this recipe?
Stephanie Manley
Sure I think you could.
Skyarr
Easy to make and nice to have fresh croutons.