Making Homemade Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are delicious, can be nutritious, and are something that is often used in many different recipes. After reading the ingredients on some of my favorite breadcrumbs, I decided to try my hand at making my own. Ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated vegetable oil, dough conditioners, lactic acid...have no place in my families food. I can do it so much simpler, cheaper, and most importantly healthier at home with homemade bread. That being said if you choose to use store bought bread, make sure you are okay with the ingredients that are in the bread itself. 

So let's get started. Use whatever bread you have in your kitchen right now. Sure, you can go to the store and buy a loaf, or make a loaf, but why not try using what you already have. In my case I had extra bread left over from our camp out last weekend. Being homemade, it wasn't moldy, but wasn't the freshest anymore after 3 days. So I dried it. Some people prefer to chop it up and then mix it with seasonings and then dry it. Normally I just dry the bread, grind it up in my food processor, and then season it. That is what I did this morning. I dried it for several hours in my oven at 200 degrees Fahrenheit.

Some of my bread after it was dried in the oven.

After the bread was dry I placed it in my food processor to grind it up. I ground my breadcrumbs pretty fine, but you can make yours however course or fine you would like.

Bread in the food processor.

Looks like it needs some more grinding...

Looks pretty good except for those pieces that got missed...

Then pour your breadcrumbs into a large bowl or dish. I put mine in one container and then measure out the bread crumbs so I can make sure there is enough seasoning per batch. Now it's time to add the spices!

I like to put all the breadcrumbs in a large bowl or dish.
Then I scoop breadcrumbs out of this pan and add them to
the other dry ingredients so I can measure them
accurately. 

So for the spices/seasonings...I add 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to every 1 1/2 cups of breadcrumbs. 

Carefully measured ingredients. 

After you mix the ingredients together put them in a container of your choice. I like to use my glass canning jars as they help keep things fresh. All the other bread crumbs I put in a bag in the freezer and will bring them out as needed.

Fresh homemade breadcrumbs!

Try it and let me know how your homemade bread crumbs turned out!