Easy Homemade Bread Crumbs

Bread crumbs are easy to make at home and can be spiced up any way you like. Learn how to make bread crumbs from scratch for use in your favorite dishes like meatballs, meatloaf, breaded chicken and so much more! Jump to the Bread Crumbs Recipe or read on to see our tips for making them.

Sure you can buy bread crumbs at the store, but recently I’ve gotten into the habit of making my own. Here’s a few reasons why:

• You can use pretty much any bread you have on hand. Better yet, stale old bread or the harder ends of a bread loaf are perfect!
• When making our own bread crumbs, we get to choose how fine or coarse they are. When I’m making meatballs or meatloaf, I like my bread crumbs to be pretty fine. If I’m using them as a crunchy topping, I love making them more rustic and coarse.
• You can season them any way you like.

How to Make Bread Crumbs

Here’s a quick rundown of making your own homemade bread crumbs — the most common way is to use a food processor, but that’s not the only way!

Using a food processor, blender or spice grinder

Slice or cube the bread of your choosing into small pieces. The smaller you cut the bread, the easier it will be for your appliance to break the bread down. Then simply add the bread pieces to your appliance and pulse until the bread breaks down into your desired size. Depending on how much bread you have and how powerful your food processor, blender or grinder is, you might need to do this in batches.

Use a box grater or microplane

If your bread is pretty stale, you can carefully grate it using a box grater and even a microplane. This method doesn’t work as well for softer, more fresh bread so if that’s all you have, consider baking the bread before grating to dry it out — just like we do when making homemade croutons. We recommend cutting your bread into sizable chunks before baking, though, so you will have something to hold onto when grating.

Use a rolling pin, heavy pan or mallet

This is another excellent option for stale, hard pieces of bread. Simply add the bread to a bag and beat it into submission with something heavy like a rolling pin, heavy pan or mallet. If you have fresh or soft bread, follow our recipe for making croutons at home, let them cool, and then bash them into bread crumbs.

Toasted bread crumbs vs. fresh bread crumbs

Depending on what you plan to do with them, you can leave bread crumbs fresh (this is a nice option for meatballs or meatloaf) or you can toast them in a skillet or in the oven until golden and crisp. My preferred method is to use a skillet because I am notorious for burning toast/bread in the oven!

• For fresh bread crumbs, simply process bread into the size you want and use them.
• To make bread crumbs in a skillet, stir them with some olive oil or butter and whatever seasonings you love over medium heat until they are golden and crisp. (You can also skip the oil/butter and spices, and then just toast them in a dry pan.)
• To bake bread crumbs in the oven, add them to a rimmed baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 to 10 minutes. Just like when making them in a skillet, you can bake them plain without any additional ingredients or add flavor with oil, butter and/or spices.
• To turn croutons into bread crumbs, process the crunchy croutons (homemade or store-bought) into crumbs using one of the methods shared above.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you need to cut off the crust?

This is up to you, but we never cut off the crusts when making bread crumbs. I love the different color and textures you achieve when using both the middle and the crusts of bread.

What’s the best way to store homemade bread crumbs?

Cool them first, and then add the bread crumbs to an airtight container. They should keep at room temperature for a few days and in the freezer up to a month. If when you go to use them, they could be a bit more crispy, simply throw them into the oven or a hot skillet for a few minutes (keeping an eye on them so that they do not burn), and then use.

How do you make Italian bread crumbs?

Stir 1 cup of bread crumbs with 1/4 teaspoon fine salt, 1/4 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper, 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon onion powder, and 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning.

What is the difference between homemade and panko bread crumbs?

Panko bread crumbs are made with a unique Japanese crustless bread, which makes them extremely light and crisp. We use them a lot in our recipes. These homemade breadcrumbs won’t be exactly the same since it is difficult to achieve how light panko bread crumbs are at home. That said, these homemade bread crumbs should still work in most recipes.

More easy recipes

• How to Make Homemade Croutons
• How to Make Rosemary Garlic Focaccia
• Homemade Granola Bars
• No Yeast Flatbread