Fast And Easy way To Make Your Own Bread Crumbs by Mary Walsh

Do not even think of throwing out those leftover bread & rolls! Gather all those extra pieces of leftover bread, pretzels, crusts and crackers then use them to create fresh, homemade crumbs. These small, fine particles of dry bread are primarily used for crumbing or breading foods.

Fried foods can be more crisp and crunchy when cooked with bread crumbs. They're also used for making stews more thick and rich and for stuffing poultry.

To get you started, you need the following materials:

One big bowl that can fit 32 cups of mixture
One big airtight container w/ seal
Two pieces of freezer/Ziploc bags, in big gallon sizes
Food dehydrator
Food processor/blender

You'll also need spices to create your very own crumbs. Be sure to stock up on the following:

Garlic powder/salt
Basil
Green onions (dried), chopped
Oregano
Black pepper
Parsley
Seasoned salt
Dill
Rosemary

You could actually add any spice you want. Some really good flavors you could make include lemon-sage crumbs, Parmesan-Oregano crumbs, Almond and Garam Masala crumbs and Coconut-Lime crumbs.

Use your freezer/Ziploc bags to keep all the bread leftovers you can get. Fill them up and put them inside your refrigerator. After getting 2 bags full of leftover bread, then you can proceed to producing your crumbs.

Take the bags out from the refrigerator and let them thaw in room temp. for about 2 hrs. Then open the bags & put your leftovers inside the food dehydrator. Slice the big pcs. into small ones so you'll not have trouble fitting them inside the dehydrator. Set unit at low temperature and let bread pieces become dry completely (6 to 8 hrs). To avoid waiting, you can do this step the night prior so that next morning after waking up the crumbs will already be dehydrated completely.

Take the bread from out of the dehydrator then put them inside the food processor. Blend or chop the bread pieces. Make sure that all bread pieces turn into very fine crumbs before turning off your food processor.

Now add the herbs and spices to the processor. You can add 1 tbsp of each for just the right amount of seasoning. Cover food processor again and blend the mixture. Mix these for about 30 seconds. After that, store the fine crumbs inside an airtight container and keep them where it is cool and dry. Use these homemade crumbs as coatings for chicken, fish, meatballs and meatloaf.