Pan-Fried Croutons

Add a nice tasty crunch to your soup or salad with these homemade croutons that whip up in a flash!

These croutons were born one day when I made my creamy roasted cauliflower soup and the only bread at home was slightly stale. By simply slathering it with some vegan butter, sprinkling it with some herbs and salt, and tossing it around in a hot pan, BOOM I had delicious homemade croutons!

Here is what you´ll need:

• 

Sliced bread
Vegan butter or olive oil
Garlic powder
Herbs of choice- thyme, oregano, basil
Salt

You can make croutons with any kind of bread you have on hand. My personal favorite is with multigrain. I normally make about 1 piece of bread per person.

As far as the herbs go, you can use whatever you like. Typical dried herbs for croutons are thyme, basil, parsley, rosemary and oregano. or you can also omit them and just have garlic croutons which are also delicious. My personal favorite is with thyme.

Here is the process, it is quite simple!

1. Slather both sides of the bread with vegan butter or olive oil.
2. Sprinkle both sides with a generous amount of garlic powder, and then a light dusting of herbs and salt. Feel free to press in the herbs and garlic slightly with your hands so it doesn´t fall off.
3. Cut the bread into 1/2inch – 1nch pieces
4. Preheat a pan to medium heat (I use non-stick), and lay the bread cubes in there butter/olive oil side down and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side. The key is not allowing them to brown withought letting them burn, of course!
5. After browning them for about 3 minutes on each side, I toss them around in the pan frequently to make sure that all of the sides get nice and browned and a bit firmer. Touch them to make sure that they are getting crispy and crouton-like.
6. Then you take the hot pan off of the heat and let it sit for about 2 minutes, this allows them to become even more crispy.

Storage instructions

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