Step 1
Prepare the stale bread.
You can use any of the following breads to make croutons :
* Fresh or day old bread (regular sandwich bread, white or wheat)
* French bread or rolls
* Hamburger Buns
* Hot dog buns
* Any other type of edible bread that you can find.
Larger breads or whole loaves of bread will need to be sliced to allow the inside of the bread to become slightly stale (crusty/crunchy).
In order to give bread a stale texture bread can be left out to dry over night and bread might be stale and ready in only a few hours. It's best to pay close attention to and possibly even cover the slices of bread to prevent pests such as flies from landing on the bread.
Step 2
Preheat your oven to 300 Degrees Fahrenheit.
Step 3
Gather together, all of the things that you'll need to make your croutons and set up your "working/cooking station".
The amount of seasonings that you use will vary depending on the amount of stale bread and other ingredients that you have available.
Step 4
Most cooks prefer to cut the crusts off of the stale bread slices when they are making croutons. However based on your personal preference you can either cut the crusts off of your stale bread slices or not.
Cut your stale slices of bread into square inch cubes. You might want to experiment with the size of your croutons by cutting them into either smaller or larger cubes based on your personal results.
Step 5
Lightly melt about a half a stick of butter until it reaches room temperature using a saucepan. You might need to make more butter mixture or end up having butter mixture leftover depending on how much stale bread you use.
You can also just leave a bowl of butter sitting out on the counter for a few hours or lightly melt the butter by placing the bowl of butter in the microwave for a few seconds.
The butter needs to be at a mixable texture. This will allow you to mix in your spices.
Instead of using butter to make croutons many cooks have good results using Olive Oil or cooking butter/oil spray.
Step 6
Take your room temperature butter and add it into a mixing bowl.
Add 1 teaspoon of each of the following spices into your butter : garlic powder, onion powder, chives and parsley also add 1 sprinkle of salt.
Use a spoon and thoroughly mix up the butter and seasoning mixture.
You can always mix any desired amount of ANY spices into the butter.
For example :
* Seasoned salt
* Sesame seeds
* Poppy Seeds
* Steak Spices made for meat tenderizer and meat marinades
* Ranch Dressing Dip (powder mix)
* Onion soup mix (powder)
* Thyme
* Basil
* Paprika
* Chili powder
* Pepper
* Crushed red chili peppers
* Other fresh herbs and spices, etc.
You can replace all of the powdered ingredients with fresh ingredients of course, such as : Fresh garlic, fresh parsley, fresh chives, etc.
The possibilities are endless so feel free to experiment until you are happy with your home made crouton recipe.
Step 7
Toss the cubed crouton pieces in the butter and spice mixture.
or
Use a large spoon to pour some butter mixture over the croutons or brush the butter mixture onto the croutons using a cooking grade "paint brush".
Another alternative would be to toss the bread cubes and the butter mixture in a sealed sandwich baggie until thoroughly coated.
Step 8
Organize the croutons onto an ungreased cooking sheet so that they aren't touching one another.
If desired you can sprinkle more spices onto the croutons at this time.
Place the cookie sheet/croutons into the oven to bake at 300 degrees.