How to Make Bread Crumbs (2024)

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An easy recipe for how to make breadcrumbs: fresh, dried, or fried. Whether you want a crust on chicken or fish, a binder for your meatballs, or a crunchy topping for casseroles and vegetables, homemade bread crumbs should be on your menu and in your freezer.

Types of bread crumbs:

• Fresh breadcrumbs: These are slightly dried, rustic, irregularly shaped, and generally not for sale in stores. Imagine tearing up some slices of soft bread and pulsing it in your food processor. Those are fresh breadcrumbs.
• Dried/toasted breadcrumbs: Start with fresh breadcrumbs and then toast them in the oven to remove almost all of the moisture. This extends their shelf life, too.
• Fried breadcrumbs: Start with fresh breadcrumbs, then toast them in a skillet with fat (usually butter or olive oil). These don’t work for breading or binding, but they make an excellent garnish or crunchy topping.

Common uses:

• As a breading: Fried foods (even oven-fried) wouldn’t be half as fun without a crispy, light-as-air breading. But more importantly, breading protects food from drying out and toughening up when it comes in contact with hot fat. Breaded chicken, Eggplant Parmesan, and pork tenderloin cutlets all use breadcrumbs. (Note: “Breading” can be made with other foods such as crackers or cornmeal; it doesn’t have to be bread.)
• As a binder: Meatloaf and meatball recipes traditionally use breadcrumbs to hold moisture and improve the texture of ground meat. The bread prevents the meat proteins from cross-linking which improves tenderness.
• As a topping or garnish: On top of casseroles, vegetables, and appetizers, a breadcrumb topping is the perfect finishing touch, especially when mixed with butter, Parmesan cheese, and herbs.

The best type of bread:

• Look for hearty white sandwich bread with a firm crumb. Pepperidge Farm “Farmhouse” Hearty White Bread or Oroweat “Country” White Bread are my top choices. They have a fresh flavor and tender texture but grind evenly straight out of the bag.
  
• Rustic loaves with a coarse texture can work, too. Examples include baguettes, challah, or French bread. Tear into 2-inch pieces before pulsing in your food processor.
  
• Panko, a Japanese-style crumb, are extra crispy. Made from crustless white bread that is baked using an electrical current and ground into uneven pieces. Panko crumbs are light, crispy, and great for pan-fried foods. Sometimes they don’t work well as a binder because they may absorb too much moisture from your meat.

Make fresh bread crumbs:

1. To a food processor, add torn bread pieces (work in batches if necessary).
   
2. Pulse 3 or 4 times to break up the bread, then let the machine run for a few seconds for coarse crumbs.
   
3. Run it a little longer for fine crumbs.
   

Make dried/toasted bread crumbs:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Add ground breadcrumbs in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.
   
2. Bake until dry and toasted, 15 to 30 minutes, depending on how finely they are ground (in this picture, I baked the crumbs for 20 minutes).
   

Make fried bread crumbs:

1. In a large skillet over medium heat, add olive oil until shimmering (or butter until foaming). Use 1 tablespoon of fat per 1 cup of crumbs.
2. Add ground breadcrumbs and stir until golden and crisp, about 3 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
   

Recipe tips and variations:

• Leftover bread: One really great way to reduce food waste is to save all your leftover bread ends, chunks, and pieces. You can store them in the freezer until have a large batch, and then grind them all at once.
• Make them by hand: Add toasted bread to a sturdy plastic bag. Roll over it with a rolling pin or mallet, crumbling the slices. Then transfer to a new, sealable bag or container because you probably damaged the plastic bag in the process.
• Bread slice to crumb conversion: If you’re using the hearty white sandwich bread I recommended above (Pepperidge Farm Farmhouse Hearty White or similar):
  • 1 slice (1.4 ounces) = ¾ cup breadcrumbs
  • 4 slices = 3 cups breadcrumbs
• Seasoned bread crumbs: Use 1 ½ to 2 teaspoons of spice per 1 cup of breadcrumbs. Italian, Greek, Cajun, Garlic butter. Or add red chili flakes (spicy), Parmesan (cheesy), fresh herbs, or fried, crumbled bacon bits.
• Storage: Make sure that the breadcrumbs you made are stored in an airtight zip-top bag or sealed container with very little free space. Thaw frozen breadcrumbs for 30 minutes at room temperature before using.
  • Fresh plain breadcrumbs: Store at room temperature for 1 week or in the freezer for 3 months.
  • Seasoned breadcrumbs: If you’ve made flavored breadcrumbs with grated cheese, fresh herbs, or garlic, for example, keep them in the refrigerator and use them within 1 week.
  • Dried (or stale) breadcrumbs: Store at room temperature for up to 1 month or in the freezer for 3 months.
  • Panko breadcrumbs: Store indefinitely at room temperature.

Recipes with bread crumbs:

• Baked Ham with crumb topping
• Chicken Parmesan
• Chicken Piccata
• Chicken Milanese
• Turkey Meatballs