Cooking made easy - How to make breadcrumbs

Cooking made easy – How to make your own breadcrumbs

Why on earth would I want to make my own breadcrumbs I hear you ask. Good question. There are several reasons.

You know exactly what is in them

It’s cheap

It’s a good way of using up stale bread

They taste better than store bought

I think that’s enough reasons. I much prefer to make my own for all the above reasons, but most importantly, whenever I use my own, I feel like I have achieved something and they do taste better than the mass produced store bought ones. Here’s how to do it.

You will need:

Equipment:

A blender of food processor

Ingredients:

Stale bread

Almost any bread will do and you can mix up different kinds of bread. In this example, I have used several different pieces of bread. You can mix whole meal and white bread, sourdough, pretty much anything you like. If the bread is not properly dried out or quite stae enough, just toast it or broil it for a few minutes until it’s nice and dry.

First, take all your bread leftovers and tear them into small pieces.

Next, turn on your food processor or blender and add the pieces. Unless you have a really powerful blender, you will need to add them slowly rather than throw them all in at the same time. Remember to cover the blender top if you’re using a blender. I have spread breadcrumbs all over the kitchen on more than one occasion.

Blend the bread until it’s finely ground up. The finished article should look something like this.

Now you can use the crumbs to coat whatever you like. These were used to coat fishcakes, but you can use them for fried chicken or anything else that calls for breadcrumbs.

They freeze well, but if you choose to freeze them,

Make sure that the container is air tight. If the bread was nice and dry before you started, you can keep them in a Tupperware container until you need them. If the bread was still a little moist, you can finish drying them by spreading them on a baking sheet and outing them in a warm oven for a few minutes until they are crispy and dry. It’s important that they are dry to stop any mould growing on them.

It’s nice to be able to save some money and it’s also nice not to throw something away that you can put to good use elsewhere.

Bon Apetit !