Challah Bread Garlic Croutons
Challah bread garlic croutons are an essential part of my kitchen cuisine. You make a large batch of croutons from a loaf of Challah bread and keep the them in a Ziploc baggie in the freezer. They keep in the freezer for a good 4-6 months…if they even last that long. Store them in the freezer and take them out as you need them. There are truly so many thing that these golden, crispy Challah croutons are great on. Sprinkle them on soups whole or crush them with you fingers, crush and sprinkle on sauteed fish or chicken with spinach like seasoned bread crumbs but oh so much better! They are great crushed on Chilean sea bass with green goddess sauce II, or on a shrimp scampi, on all salads especially on Cesar salads or vegetables like asparagus salad with yummy Dijon-garlic dressing. Just a dusting of these crumbled garlic croutons give any dish that extra kick with a toasty and slightly garlicky richness.
Ingredients – Makes 12 cups of Croutons – 1 Ex-Lg Ziploc Freezer Baggie of Croutons:
- 1 -1 1/2 Challah bread loaf from your favorite bakery or market (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:
- Pre-heat oven to 400º
- Slice off all sides of the Challah bread
- Slice bread into 1/2″ slices length wise
- Then slice into 1/2″ 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
- Melt 1 stick of butter
- 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, 1/2 Tsp pepper, 1 Tsp Tabasco and whisk just to mix …this may look spicy but when it coats the thick and absorbent Challah bread in mellows out quite a bit
- Divide this mixture into two and pour onto the 2 cookie trays spreading them evenly all over the tray
- Divide up Challah bread cubes into 2 and put onto the 2 cookie trays right on the olive oil mixture
- Stir the cut up Challah 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!
- NOW sprinkle 2 Tsp of garlic granules on each of the cookie trays filled with Challah garlic croutons
- Put into the oven for 12 minutes til golden
- IMPORTANT – they go quickly at the end so you really need to watch them so they don’t burn
- Let the Challah garlic croutons cool before putting them into a Freezer Ziploc baggie
- I usually keep them on the counter for a few days then throw them into the freezer to store and keep fresh