Sprinkle and enjoy these homemade sourdough croutons on a salad of your choosing. TNS

What's a salad without croutons? Bland!

Perhaps, you could argue that adding croutons to a salad defeats the purpose of it being healthy, but have you thought about how easy they make for you to actually eat the said salad?

What’s more, you can actually make croutons at home using any kind of bread you prefer. This way, you will know exactly what ingredients went in.

Homemade croutons are much tastier than the store-bought version anyway. Store-bought croutons are hard and dry, whereas the homemade ones have a fresh taste and a delectable crunch.

In fact, they are so good that you will actually want to make a salad (yes, willingly!) just to give yourself an excuse to eat the croutons.

Croutons are very easy to make. Even though they take time some time to bake, they require almost no effort to put together.

Homemade Sourdough Croutons

Ingredients

1 sourdough loaf, fresh or day-old

Extra-virgin olive oil

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cut the bread with its crust into cubes slightly larger than the crouton size you like because they tend shrink after baking. Spread the cubes in a single layer, leaving some space between them, on a half-sheet pan or other rimmed baking sheet. Bake until dry, firm and golden, 10 to 20 minutes. The timing depends on how dry your bread is to begin with.

3. Put the pan on a rack and push all the bread cubes together so they’re touching. Drizzle evenly with olive oil so all the cubes are lightly coated but not drenched. Toss the cubes to even out the oil coating and spread out again. Return to the oven and bake until golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes. Let them go to dark golden brown if you prefer extra-crunchy croutons with a dark-toast taste. Just don’t let them burn.