Homemade Italian Croutons Recipe: Baked Croutons Seasoned to Perfection by Donna John
After preparing a copycat recipe of Olive Garden's Italian dressing, I knew I had to elevate my salad to be worthy of this delicious dressing. The answer was fresh, hot out of the oven, homemade croutons. But they needed to be elevated, too, so I turned them into Italian-seasoned croutons. Delicious!
These easy baked croutons are not just seasoned dried Italian seasoning, but a dried Italian seasoning blend. There are lots of brands to choose from, and they all have different ingredients. Mine had all the Italian herbs plus garlic, onion, crushed red pepper flake and more. All you need to make these crunchy seasoned croutons is bread (see Recipe Notes), a dried Italian seasoning blend and olive oil. The croutons bake up in the oven until golden and crunchy.
Use these croutons as a crunchy topping for salads, for recipes calling for croutons, as a topping for soups or just munch on them as a snack. I dipped a few of mine into that homemade creamy Italian salad dressing and also fresh basil pesto.
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Cuisine: American / Italian
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 5 to 10 minutes (ovens vary)
Total Time: 10 to 15 minutes
Servings: varies
Ingredients
Helpful Products
Recipe Notes
- You can use any type of bread for this recipe. I used plain ol' sandwich butter bread, but I have also used leftover hotdog buns and hamburger buns. Italian bread, French bread, sourdough, ciabatta, artisan and wheat bread also work well.
- Store the croutons in an airtight container to keep them fresher longer.
Here's how to make it:
- Cut or tear the bread into pieces and put onto a baking sheet. Season with the Italian seasoning blend and drizzle generously with olive oil.
- Bake in a preheated 400-degree F oven for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until dried out and crunchy. Watch them closely because they go from perfection to burnt in a heartbeat!
Recipe cooking times and servings are approximate. To ensure image quality, we may occasionally use stock photography. Need to convert cooking and baking measurements? Here are some kitchen conversion charts. Here's how to submit your recipes to 30Seconds.
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