How To Make (And Store) Homemade Breadcrumbs
Save money, reduce waste and potentially control the additives and sodium by making your own breadcrumbs.
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Ingredients
- Choose Your Bread:
- Choose day-old or 2 day-old loaves of French bread or Italian bread or bags of bread already diced for stuffing. These are always leftover after holidays especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. I also like to keep tossing the ends of white bread/wheat bread or whatever I have weekly in a baggie in the freezer till I have enough to use to make breadcrumbs.
- Choose your add-in seasonings:
- Add in salt as little or as much as you enjoy...whichever variety you enjoy
- Black pepper
- After that you choose to leave it as is or customize it for your need or taste. I leave it as is and customize when I use then breadcrumbs.
- Additional add-in choices are red pepper flakes grated Parmesan cheese, dried oregano or Italian seasoning, dried parsley, garlic powder or onion powder.
Instructions
- If bread is not already cubed, cut it into 1-inch chunks.
- Place bread in your food processor and pulse until the bread becomes breadcrumbs the size you enjoy.
- Season with your chosen seasonings or leave plain.
- Store in quart sized mason jars, freezer containers or gallon-sized freezer bags.
- Pull out when needed and toss breadcrumbs right in...no need to thaw them.
- See Notes
Notes
If your bread is very fresh, after you pulse the bread cubes into crumbs, spread them out on a baking sheet and bake at 275 for 15minutes (tossing every 5) until they dry out a bit.
If you want drier crumbs no matter what kind of bread you are using, do the same as above...up to 20-25 minutes, just keep an eye on them and toss often towards the end.
Once completely cooled, store in the freezer.
Breadcrumbs keep for 3-4 months in the freezer in proper containers. I personally leave mine NOT toasted...I like them "fresh" for most recipes, when I want crisp, I reach for Panko.