Torn Croutons Recipe (2024)

First, the olive oil measure in this recipe should be 1/3 C. Looks like a typo in ingredients as published here. I have been making my own crouton for 30 years, but it didn't occur to me to tear the bread until seeing Samin's recipe. Genius. I've made these in both standard and "classic" - see Tip at bottom of recipe - and they're great to use in salad, with soup, to dip in hummus or other spreads or on their own with a libation. Airtight container and they've held well for a week for us.

Pro tip: after 2-3 cups croutons have baked, drop them while still hot into a paper bag (or similar) containing: 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp sweet paprika, 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan, 2-3 tablespoons (combo) of finely chopped parsley thyme sage oregano. Close the bag and shake it until croutons evenly coated then transfer to a pan or plate to cool before serving. Magic!

These are really good. As another said, the olive oil is 1/3 cup. Lightly sprinkled oregano in addition to salt before baking. Put these in a sealed container and kept great for three weeks. Then used them in my dressing for Thanksgiving. Hubba-hubba.

Reference other notes/comments. Time given in recipe seems long…but may work if you are using a traditional oven or have it to that mode. In convection oven/mode 8 minutes worked for me after following recipe.

Did a hall of a baguette, third of a cup of olive oil salt and pepper. Didn’t shy away from using the crust. I did nine minutes at 400°. We loved these, and will make them again.

Love these but always have lots to spare so after they’re cool I freeze them and they keep for a long time. I pop what I need in the toaster oven for one toast cycle to warm them back up/get them crispy and let them cool while I prepare the salad. Delicious.

My croutons were very brown after only 8 minutes. They would have been burnt to a crisp after 18-22 minutes!

Love this simple recipe, the savior of old bread. If you thinly slice off the crust in large pieces and toast them along with the croutons, it makes terrific crackers.

Delicious and easy. I made the cheesy, garlicy version in the Tip section. You'll definitely want to keep an eye on them after the 8-minute mark. I shuffled them around every couple of minutes and took them out after about 18 minutes.

Sooo... this recipe got me thinking. I placed the dry croutons on top of bacon slices on a sheet pan (no oil) for 10 minutes at 375. Shuffle the bread, baked another 5 minutes. Removed croutons. Finished bacon. I think it was another 5 minutes to make it crispy as bread atop made the cooked bacon look ... sad. Used both bacon and croutons in salad. I cannot express how such a simple swap created a culinary foodgasm. Changed my whole salad game.

20 minutes at 400 is more than sufficient!!

These croutons are great! I have made them with garlic, onion, parmesan, sesame seeds....depends on what i am doing with them. The tough part is not eating them before i add them to my recipe!! So far, I have always used some kind of soughdough bread.

Great, easy recipe. Cooked perfectly in 8-10 min, as others have suggested

Tear your leftover bread. Put the plastic bag full into the freezer. When you need croutons, toss them with oil and toast them from frozen.

I just made this with a seeded sourdough baguette, torn, crust on. Took about 8 minutes. Perfection! Leave the crust on, it adds an extra dimension of crunchiness.

Why get rid of the crust? I cut my croutons (why tear?) so that each one has some crust. We munch on them but in a salad , the dressing softens the crusts. The crust is part of the bread so why not part of the bread toasted?

excellent as suggested in the tip!

The parm sort of gathered at the bottom of the sheet. Cooked too long! Should never have run upstairs during the 20 minutes. Next time I will try the paper bag trick. Like everyone's suggestions for keeping and storing, and using for stuffing and more. )

Mine burned at 7 minutes, so keep an eye on them.

Perfect oven croutons! We do like the garlic add but also the basic version too. Very good! In my oven these work best at 375F. I also sub granulated garlic for fresh as it resists burning … add it directly to the oil or add it to the bread chunks after they are oiled. Also, a trick learned from a fav Alice Waters cookbook is to toss the hot croutons with a generous amount of fresh, minced garlic as they come out of oven. We love these made w/fresh sourdough bread

Did a hall of a baguette, third of a cup of olive oil salt and pepper. Didn’t shy away from using the crust. I did nine minutes at 400°. We loved these, and will make them again.

Temperature way too high. Burnt in 8 minutes.

Delicious and easy. I made the cheesy, garlicy version in the Tip section. You'll definitely want to keep an eye on them after the 8-minute mark. I shuffled them around every couple of minutes and took them out after about 18 minutes.

Cooking time and temperature, made croutons using this recipe & followed the noted time. My oven is a conventional electric range. At 18 minutes my croutons are lumps of blackened coal unfit for even feeding the birds. I went online to look up other recipes for homemade croutons. 350/375 degrees was the commonest temperature and 8-15 minutes the time to check depending on the size of the croutons. This is the second time I’ve followed a NYT recipe and had unsatisfactory results. Disappointing