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.
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 with a serrated knife is ideal, as the bread won’t tear. Cut the bread into bite-sized pieces.
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 the 7 minutes, 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, and tossing in the seasoned bread, and cook 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.
Need more recipes for your air fryer? Check out these air fryer recipes.
Use Croutons on These Salads
- Panera Menu Salads – Green Goddess
- Olive Garden Italian Salad
- Summer Berry Salad
- Chopped Chicken Salad
- Caesar Salad
More Recipes for Stale bread
Be sure to check out more of my delicious homemade salads and easy bread recipes.
Air Fryer Croutons
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
Equipment Needed
- air fryer
- serrated knife
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 390 degrees.
- Cut 4 slices of bread into bite-sized pieces.
- Melt butter, and place butter into a medium-sized bowl.
- 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.
- Add bread to the bowl and carefully stir to coat the bread so that it is coated by the seasoned butter.
- Place buttered bread into the air fryer basket.
- Cook for 5 to 7 minutes or until the bread is toasted.
- Serve immediately.
Joan
Easy to make, but I substituted the seasoned salt with dried herbs -parsley or whatever is even my spice cabinet. So much better than the store bought croutons and love how I can control amount of salt. I wonder how long they will keep in a ziploc bag?
Russ
Perfect and so easy! I used a small baguette and didn’t need to change the quantities of the remaining ingredients. In 7 minutes, they were beautifully golden, crunchy on the outside and slightly soft in the center. Fortunately, dinner will be soon, or I’d eat the whole lot, nibble by nibble!
Rebecca
Thank you! This was very easy and fast! Mine only needed like three minutes and they were perfect.
Stephanie Manley
Awesome! Glad they worked for you!
Ren
So good and easy to make – will never buy store bought again! I make multiple batches & freeze most of them. We eat them within minutes of taking them out of the freezer. Recently purchased an air fryer and I’ve never been so addicted to cooking before! These croutons are the best!!!
Sharon
Love these! I just tried a new soup, Roasted Parsnip and Apples. It mentioned adding croutons and with a quick search, found this recipe. These are so good!! These could just be a snack on their own, better than Chex Mix.
Karen
I made these with stale Costco bagels & they were to die for!! Thanks for the idea!!
Lisa
WOW These are amazing and sooooo easy and fast. My 9-year old daughter just wanted to eat them as a snack! LOL I’ve now made these several times. I don’t even measure anymore. It’s really THAT easy. They definitely make a salad better. In my AF it’s only 5 minutes on 390. So watch them carefully near the end.
Gail
Absolutely divine! Just made them and tasted and it’s omg goodness!
Christy
I substituted Ranch Seasoning instead of the parsley, garlic, and onion powder. It was really good!
Ruby
Can I give this 10 stars…. Had to substitute the parsley did have any and instead I used Italian seasoning. It was amazing!! Can’t stop eating the croutons!!
CR
These came out so good. They were crunchy yet light and pillowy. They had a nice light garlicky flavor and just salty enough. This is a keeper!
fitoru
Will try this recipe one of these days.. This one looks delicious..
fitoru
I love trying out different recipes from online and I’m glad to have come across this one.. 🙂
Toni
I really loved it! Can’t wait to make it again!
Suzy
I feel like I need to buy an air fryer ASAP! We love making homemade croutons but would never of thought to do it in the air fryer! Thank you!
Liz
What a fabulous recipe! I’m new to the air fryer, but these were terrific!
Julie
Croutons are my weakness. I can say that I definitely ate more out of the bowl than in my salad! But so good and a great use of stake bread.
Francisco Velez
Hi, please state at what temperature….
Stephanie
The first instruction is to preheat at 390 degrees, please cook it at the same temperature.