These quick and delicious garlic butter croutons will gladly add texture and additional flavor profiles to your nutritious salads.

Starches -Flavor Intensifier for Salads

One great thing about adding starches to salads it that it picks up and holds flavor. For example, if you add quinoa, bread crumbs, or rice it tends to hold onto and intensify the flavor of dressings. This is why sometimes I prefer to add just a little bit of quinoa to my salads because I know it will help to intensify whatever dressing I am using. In general, I prefer to reduce the amount of carbohydrates in my diet, but sometimes just a little bit of starch in this scenario can go a long way.

What Type of Butter To Use

Grass-fed is always preferred over conventional butter. I wrote an article here about why grass-fed products are preferred over products made from grain-fed cows. If you don’t have grass-fed on hand, however, that is quite alright. Just use what you have! But if you are fresh out and will be going to the store anyways, check out KerryGold’s Irish Grass-fed butter. Their butter comes from 100% grass-fed cows.

Alternatively, one of my favorite “butter” products to use is this grass-fed Ghee from Fourth and Heart. Ghee is basically, butter but without the milk. This product in particular is extra umami yummy and in my opinion, tastes better than butter hands down.

Tips & Tricks For Garlic Butter Croutons

• Monitor and check the croutons after 10-12 minutes to see where the coloration is and if it is to your liking
• Some folks like to fish out the raw garlic bits after they have melted and infused in the butter for fear it might produce charred garlic bits in the oven. I didn’t mind leaving the garlic bits in.
• You can also use slices of bread, however, I chose baguettes because I like the characteristic harder artisan crusts that baguettes have
• If you are gluten-free, FYI they do make gluten-free croutons sold in a package. I haven’t tried to make the homemade version yet. However, let me know if you embark on that adventure.
• For salads, sometimes I like to crush up the croutons even further to make finer bread crumbs. This creates a more integrated kind of experience and the salad is less “chunky.”

Yield: 4

Garlic Butter Croutons - Salad Topper

Print

Crunchy textury garlic butter croutons to add to salads or any other dish for a bit more flavor, dynamic element, and of course texture. You also might end up eating these all by themselves!

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1/2 loaf of standard french or sourdough baguette (cut into cubes)
• 4 tbsp grass-fed butter or ghee Ghee (add more if you'd like)
• 4 fresh garlic cloves (minced or crushed)
• 1 tbsp garlic powder

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a pot, melt butter and garlic together. Add bread cubes and sprinkle with the rest of the garlic powder. Mix thoroughly. If you would like more butter you can add it here. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt if desired (I found I didn't need it, so left it out of the ingredients list)
3. Pour butter covered bread cubes onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or to the desired color.

Nutrition Information:

Yield: 5 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 213Total Fat: 13gSaturated Fat: 8gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 4gCholesterol: 31mgSodium: 257mgCarbohydrates: 21gFiber: 1gSugar: 2gProtein: 4g

Tools For The Job: