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.
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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:
- Homemade or any rustic bread
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:
- Perfect Hard-Boiled Eggs (Every Time) – perfect every time
- Buying, Grinding and Storing Ground Pork Meat – so easy, and you won’t ever buy store ground meat again
- How to Cook White Rice – fluffy every time
- Dulce de Leche (Cooked Condensed Milk) – super thick texture and perfect for dessert-filling
Oven Dried Bread
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.
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Ana says:
Thank you for your amazing tips!
Olga in the Kitchen says:
You’re very welcome, Ana!
Kausha says:
Thank you for saving my stale bread 😀 A lot of times I had bread sitting and then being tossed away and after I found your blog, I started drying using your recipe AND making your meatballs as well. I froze 6 sandwich bags last week, and it’s like ‘if you have meatballs, you always have something to eat’. Love your meatball recipes and this dried bread is my favorite too.
Olga in the Kitchen says:
Maybe you should invite me over for some of those meatballs 😀 That’s what I always say. When there are meatballs in your freezer, there is always food at home!