How to Make Bread Crumbs
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Whenever I end up with extra bread, I use it to make bread crumbs. Sometimes I even buy reduced-price bread for this purpose because I just can’t bring myself to pay $4 for a box of crumbs.
If you’ve never made bread crumbs before, you should definitely give it a try. Here’s how to make plain, Italian and Panko bread crumbs.
Be sure to print a copy of the recipe for your recipe book. You’ll find it tucked at the bottom of the post.
How to Make Breadcrumbs
Cook Time:
10-15 mins
Ingredients:
Bread
For Italian bread crumbs, add 4 tbsp of Italian seasoning and 1 tsp of garlic powder for every 3 cups of crumbs. Optional: grated Parmesan
What You Do:
Chop some bread into one-inch cubes. Use whatever bread you happen to have on hand. If your family never eats the bread heels, save them in the freezer until you have a bunch, and use those.
Stick your bread cubes in the food processor, and pulse until they’re reduced to crumbs. Your crumbs probably won’t be a consistent size, and that’s perfectly okay (good even).
Spread the bread crumbs out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet (or multiple cookie sheets), and dry them in the oven at 300 degrees. Check on them after 10-15 minutes to see how they’re doing. They’re done when they feel really dry and crispy. I’d love to give you a total oven time, but it really depends on how moist your bread is.
Remove your crumbs from the oven when they’re dry, and allow them to cool to room temperature.
If you want Panko bread crumbs (with a coarse texture), you’re all done.
If you want plain bread crumbs (with a fine texture), transfer your bread crumbs back to your food processor, and pulse until they’re as fine as you want them.
For Italian bread crumbs, add four Tablespoons of Italian seasoning and one teaspoon of garlic powder to your food processor for every three cups of crumbs. Grated Parmesan would be a nice addition, if you have it on hand.
To Store:
Place your bread crumbs in an air-tight container, and stick them in your pantry. They’ll keep for several months, just like the store-bought version.
Note:
As with any food that you dry, it’s a good idea to shake the jar once a day for the first several days to evenly distribute the remaining moisture throughout the food.
How to Make Bread Crumbs
Follow these simple instructions to make your own bread crumbs — including Panko and Italian-style bread crumbs.
- Total Time: 10 minutes
- Yield: Varies
Ingredients
- Bread
- For Italian bread crumbs, add 4 tbsp of Italian seasoning and 1 tsp of garlic powder for every 3 cups of crumbs. Optional: grated Parmesan
Instructions
Cut bread into one-inch cubes.
Pulse bread in the food processor, until it’s reduced to crumbs.
Spread the bread crumbs out in a thin layer on a cookie sheet. Uses multiple cookie sheets, if you need them.
Dry the crumbs in a 300 degree oven. Check on them after 10-15 minutes. Continue baking, until they feel really dry and crispy. Total time will depend on how moist your bread was when you started.
Allow your bread crumbs to cool to room temperature.
If you want Panko bread crumbs (with a large, coarse crumb), you don’t have to do anything else.
If you want plain or Italian bread crumbs, pulse your crumbs in the food processor again, until they come out really fine. Mix in the extra seasonings and optional Parmesan to create Italian bread crumbs.
Store your finished bread crumbs in an air-tight container. They’ll keep for many months this way.
Note:Â Shake your bread crumbs once a day for the first week. This will ensure that any remaining moisture gets evenly distributed throughout the crumbs, so they don’t mold.
- Cook Time: 10 minutes (up to 15 minutes)
- Category: Ingredient
- Method: Drying/Dehydrating
- Cuisine: Global
Keywords: how to make breadcrumbs
I just started making bread crumbs. I take the left-over bread and roll it up in balls and put it in my Vitamix. It gives me fine crumbs in a mater of seconds.
Erin, can you dry bread crumbs in the dehydrator as opposed to the oven? thanks!
Yep, you could definitely do that. Funny that you brought up dehydrators. My next several posts involve dehyrating 🙂
I just tried the panko crumbs with my white sourdough bread. It was great. Thanks so much!
★★★★★
Glad to hear it. Once you’ve made a batch of panko bread crumbs, I think it’s even harder to understand why they charge so much for a box at the grocery store 🙂
I greatly appreciate your site! I find myself with remainder of my one open loaf that is part stale and partly wet due to my storage on the top of my fridge. I store my unopened double wrapped bread in the freezer. I generally catch it before any visible mold has started. I find my self needing to dry and lightly toast the bread first before crumbling using bag/mallet or mortar/pestle (no food processor). I need to use two baking sheets because the moisture levels are so different that each needs a different amount of time in the oven. I realize this method is not good for large amounts. The frugality of not wasting food you’ve already purchased is even more apparent when using more expensive “light”/”lite” breads.