Clean Eating: Super-Easy Homemade Bread Crumbs

My original goal with starting this clean-foods journey was just to start replacing unhealthy items in my kitchen with their healthier versions.  I’ve come a long way since then!  I’ve changed my whole philosophy of food and eating, and I’ve also realized that some of my favorite items simply didn’t have a good replacement, and that was okay.  (As in, I used to eat Cool-Whip by the spoonful, straight from the container, frozen or not.   It used to be one of my favorite things…now that thought makes me want to gag! lol  Fresh whipped cream is great, and I’ve made it lots of times, but it just does NOT set up like Cool-Whip, and that’s the way it goes.)

Sometimes, I’ve found a great replacement recipe, but realized that in actuality, the replacement recipe takes so long to make that I’d rather just go without the item.  Case in point: homemade tortillas. 

They are fabulous and they are SO much better than their chemical-filled counterparts (go stand in the tortilla aisle sometime and breathe in - it’s not a natural smell!), but they take soooooooo much of my time that I’ve only made them twice.  So we forgo enchiladas and tortillas and usually go with taco salad when we need a Mexican fix.  No big deal. 

However, I am happy to report that homemade bread crumbs ARE a good replacement, and they DON’T take a lot of your time to make.  Can I get an amen?! :)

I gathered information from a few different websites for this recipe, so I can’t credit any one source….except Google.  Thank you, Google. :)

(Remember, these will look so dark because I used 100% all-natural whole wheat bread.  They are not going to look as fluffy as the ones you buy in the store….that have about a bajillion ingredients, like dough conditioners, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, and other icky-for-you additives in them.  Dark is good! :)

I don’t know about you, but this is WAAAY too many ingredients for me:

{via}

Homemade Bread Crumbs (Plain or Italian variation)

Ingredients:

Old bread (you can use fresh bread, but why waste it?  I used the ends of two loaves of bread, and a package of wheat rolls that Chris only used two of.)

Materials:

Oven
Cookie sheet(s)
Food processor*
Freezer bags or jars

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees (you’re drying out your bread, not toasting it or cooking it).  Tear your bread into chunks, to speed up the drying process.  Spread over the cookie sheet(s) and put into the oven. 

{yeah, that pan is old and nasty…please tell me your cookie sheets look like that, too?!}

Bake about 20 minutes (if yours is still really fluffy, leave it in there longer), until the tops feel dried out.  Turn the pieces over, return pan to the oven, and continue cooking for about 30 minutes.  Remove from oven and allow to cool.  (Picture above is after they had cooled.)

Once cool, break bread into small chunks and place in food processor.  Blend or pulse until bread crumbs are your desired thickness?chunkiness?

Place into freezer bag and keep in freezer.  From what I’ve read, these will keep for several months (maybe a year??) in your freezer.

{I decided after the first bag that it was a liiiiittle over-kill to write what year on the bags.  I mean really, if we haven’t eaten these by next July…they’re getting chucked! lol}

Seriously….SO easy.  If you wanted to make Italian bread crumbs, I would add a little Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese to the bag.  It it tastes too bland, then add a little more. :) I intentionally left mine plain so that I had the option to season later or not.  We had these last night with our dinner and it was fabulous!  You’d never know the difference. 

This definitely works for me!  Happy eating! :)

Linked to these food parties:

Tasty Tuesday @ Beauty and Bedlam
Tasty Tuesdays @ 33 Shades of Green

*You could definitely put the cooled, baked bread into sealed ziploc bags and then smash it with a mug or other heavy object.  It just goes a lot faster with a processer!