Italian Garlic Croutons

Italian Garlic Croutons

Italian garlic croutons are super easy and such a hardy and tasty addition to any salad! I keep the crust with these garlic croutons because it gives them more texture. My favorite salad with these Italian garlic croutons is a Caesar salad which I’ll be posting tomorrow so keep an eye out. These don’t last very long in our kitchen but if you do have a few left over after several days just put them in a Ziploc baggie and pop them into the freezer.

Above you can watch the Cooking Show on how to make my gourmet garlic croutons!

INGREDIENTS: Makes 12 -13 cups of Croutons – 1 Ex-Lg Ziploc Freezer Baggie of Croutons:

• 1- 1 1/2  large loafs of good Italian bead (14-15 cups croutons-use 1/2 stick butter and 3 tbsp olive oil if you have 10 cup of bread cubes)
• 4 large garlic cloves put thru garlic press
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3/4 stick butter (salted) melted
• 4 tsp garlic granules (not powder) – Sprinkle 2 tsp per cookie tray
• 1 tsp salt
• A couple dashes of your favorite hot sauce Siracha -you can find this with the other hot sauces at the super market
• 2 cookie trays

DIRECTIONS:

1. Pre-heat oven to 400º
2. Slice bread into 3/4″ slices length wise
3. Then slice into 3/4″ squares, you don’t want them to be perfect – that’s what’s lovely about hand made croutons they don’t look like they came from a box
4. Melt 3/4 stick of butter
5. In a large mixing bowl add 1/4 cup olive oil, 3/4 stick melted butter, 4 garlic cloves thru garlic press, 1 Tsp salt, and whisk  to mix
6. Divide this mixture into two and pour onto the 2 cookie trays spreading them evenly all over the tray
7. Divide up Italian bread cubes into 2 and put onto the 2 cookie trays right on the olive oil mixture
8. Stir the cut up bread cubes all around the cookie tray to evenly coat and soak up all of the olive oil mixture. I use a pastry scraper (see photo) to do this…a tool which I use a lot!
9. NOW sprinkle 2 Tsp of garlic granules on each of the cookie trays filled with Italian garlic croutons
10. Put into the oven for 12 minutes
11. IMPORTANT – they go quickly at the end so you really need to watch them so they don’t burn
12. Let the Italian garlic croutons cool before putting them into a Freezer Ziploc baggie
13. I usually keep them on the counter for a few days then throw them into the freezer to store and keep fresh

You may also like to try these recipes with your croutons: