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Oven Dried Bread

Oven Dried Bread is as easy as it sounds. My method is my mom’s method, slow and easy. My mom had always been drying bread in the oven, for as long as I remember. Therefore, I want to share this quick ‘how to’ recipe for meatball lovers.

Oven Dried Bread: slow and easy method to dry homemade bread in the oven for later use in meatballs. | olgainthekitchen.com

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Oven Dried Bread Recipe:

A lot of people dry bread at a high temperature for few minutes, but we want it to air-dry instead of burn-dry; therefore, we like the slow and painful method 😀 High temperature and fast works great for croutons as you want them a bit on the burned side, but with bread you just want it dry.

I usually dry the bread when it’s a laundry day or relaxation day; the day when I’m not living in my kitchen. I put the bread into the oven, set the timer and go on doing my house chores. Sometimes I leave the bread in the oven overnight to cool and continue in the morning.

When it comes to making homemade meatballs, you always need a filler such as bread to fulfill the deliciousness in meatballs. I tried substituting to store-bought bread when I ran out of the dried bread in the meatball recipe and the results were very different. The meatballs turned out like they were missing something, watery and unusual texture. So every time you have bread that is turning stale – slice it, dry it, store in an air-tight container and the next time you’re making my yummy pork meatballs, use this bread. These can be stored for months, but in my household they don’t last 2 months, sometimes a month – yes we really do like our Ukrainian Pork Meatballs 🙂 …

Oven Dried Bread Ingredients:

How to Oven-Dry Bread:

1. Preheat the oven to a 170°F (or lowest setting on your oven). Cut the bread into similar slices about 2.5-3” and 1/2″ thickness. Line bread pieces in a single layer onto a baking sheet. Bake/dry in the oven for 2 hours. Turn off the oven, and leave the baking sheet with bread in the oven to cool.

2. Once cooled, take out the dried bread and flip over. (You can see it already shrank in size and there’s all these empty space on the baking sheet). Preheat the oven back to 170°F and bake/dry for another 1 hour. Turn off the oven, and leave to completely cool. Once cooled, store in air-tight container.

More Easy How-To Tutorials:

Oven Dried Bread

5 from 2 votes
Prep Time: 3 minutes
Cook Time: 3 hours
Total Time: 3 hours 3 minutes
Oven dried bread: slow and easy method to dry homemade bread in the oven for later use in meatballs.

Ingredients 

  • Homemade or any rustic bread

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to a 170°F (or lowest setting on your oven). Cut the bread into similar slices about 2.5-3” and 1/2″ thickness. Line bread pieces in a single layer onto a baking sheet. Bake/dry in the oven for 2 hours. Turn off the oven, and leave the baking sheet with bread in the oven to cool.
  • Once cooled, take out the dried bread and flip over. (You can see it already shrank in size and there’s all these empty space on the baking sheet). Preheat the oven back to 170°F and bake/dry for another 1 hour. Turn off the oven, and leave to completely cool. Once cooled, store in air-tight container.