Croutons (Homemade)

[December]

Will anyone share a recipe and workflow for homemade croutons?
I want to make our own instead of buying them bc the ones they serve at restaurants like Texas Roadhouse and other steak houses are miles better than anything I can buy.

 

[ENYP]

Hey December,

We keep a box in the walk-in to collect each night’s leftover bread for the week. Then on make day we pull out to come to room temp, cut the bread up into our desired size for croutons, and deep fry (double basket to keep them down) for about 2-3min. Look for a nice dark color. When each batch comes out, we hit it with garlic oil, s&p, and a mix of fresh parsley & oregano. Toss em up and put into a 22qt. We leave the container open until the end of the day that we make them to allow to cool and dry. They’re absolutely delicious but we do use a really good bread to start. We def feel that makes a difference as well. We use a sesame seeded semolina hero. Good luck and lemme know if you have any questions. Stay safe.

 

[December]

That sounds insanely good, ill try it later this week thank you so much

 

[Sarkis_panossian]

We similarly save our old bread for garlic bread, buttered rolls and croutons.

I use a homemade recipe for my crouton seasoning.

Put cubed bread into a plastic hotel pan, drizzle with some oil and toss to coat lightly. Once coated spread seasoning over top and toss until evenly coated. Taste for saltiness and spread onto sheet trays making sure not to crowd them.

Place into oven (any temp) for 3min and rotate then another 2-3 min until ideal light golden brown color is achieved.

Place hot sheet trays on top of oven all day in the back behind work space until fully dried out.

Let cool on speed rack fully before placing in container for storage. Good 7-12 days based on relative humidity I usually use 3 full sheet trays 2 times a week

Ingredients for seasoning:

Salt
Black pepper
Oregano
Parsley
Thyme
Granulated Garlic
Paprika

I recommend googling a few recipes to find the balance make a batch of seasoning and trial and error taste testing and customizing your own recipe.
If using thyme, go lite
And avoid basil, bad combo on a Caesar salad which is my primary use

 

[Raj1]

Where we can use croutons
Except salads

 

[December]

•SOUP, If you sell soup you can use croutons instead of crackers

•BREADCRUMBS, If you make meatballs you can process your croutons and make breadcrumbs. Some places put breadcrumbs in their tuna salad to stretch it more

 

[Sarkis_panossian]

There is no other purpose but there are more than one kind of salad and you do not want to limit the Croutons usefulness to only one type of salad or dressing