Ditch Your Basic Croutons For Flaky Air-Fried Croissants

Without a doubt, croutons can be an important part of a salad or soup, providing flavor and textural contrast. However, sometimes store-bought, straight-out-of-the-bag croutons can be a little lackluster, so you might consider making your own. But where to start?

As it turns out, you can easily make flaky croutons with a couple of croissants, either fresh or stale. According to LifeHacker, all you need to do is cut the croissant into cubes (about an inch wide, though you can also go a bit smaller or larger) and toss the cubed croissants with a light coating of butter or oil and seasonings of your choice. For example, you could use garlic, dried herbs, or even parmesan cheese.

Last but not least, bake the cubes in your air fryer at 300 degrees Fahrenheit until golden and crispy. Unlike the usual crouton, these will be delightfully light and flaky. You certainly won't be chipping a tooth on one of these bad boys, and that's all any of us could ask for. Best of all, you'll soon find yourself enjoying a Caesar salad with the absolute best croutons. Just swap crusty bread for a croissant and dial back the temperature a bit.

Although you could pair your newly air-fried croissant croutons with any salad you please, some pairings are better than others. Due to the very nature of croissants, these croutons already possess a strong butter flavor, and adding seasonings only makes the croutons that much harder to ignore. As such, for more complex recipes like even a basic Caesar or a seasonal chopped salad, you'll want to stick with minimal seasonings, so you don't have various elements fighting for attention. You could even let the croutons shine with their original buttery croissant flavor.

On the other end of the spectrum, you can really zhuzh up croissant croutons for more basic salads, like the wedge. After all, you'll need a lot of flavor contrast to get you through that big chunk of dense lettuce. For instance, you might toss your croissant croutons with garlic or parsley to pair with a blue cheese-topped wedge salad. Likewise, you could add an Italian seasoning blend and grated parmesan to make a salad of purely raw veggies even more delicious.

Another creative alternative to store-bought croutons is repurposing extra biscuits. You can use any kind of biscuit, be it from a bacon-cheddar drop biscuit recipe or a basic buttermilk biscuit recipe passed down through generations. Of course, the biscuits don't even have to be homemade; they could be leftover biscuits from Red Lobster, KFC, or any other restaurant.

Depending on the biscuit type and personal preference, you may choose to toss the cubes in additional seasonings or move straight ahead to baking. You can use either an air fryer or your regular oven, again baking until the cubes are a rich golden color and crispy in texture. You should note that biscuit croutons will be more dense than croissant ones, but they will still offer a lighter texture than bagged croutons and impart rich flavor to any salad. Sounds perfect for a Cobb salad, if you ask us.

You also can turn cornbread into croutons — though for this method, we highly recommend keeping it simple with olive oil and sea salt to let the cornbread's flavors shine. Cornbread can be delicate, so be gentle as you toss the cubes in your chosen seasonings, and then bake until crispy. Sometimes possessing a hint of sweetness, cornbread croutons can pair well with any number of salads featuring vegetables or seafood and can also complement ingredients with sweet notes, like roasted beets or mandarin oranges.