Quick Tip: Easy Breadcrumbs

It occurred to me while I was writing my recipe for the chicken Parmesan that some of you may have most of the ingredients around the house, but might not have any breadcrumbs. This is pretty easy to solve if you are planning on making the dish several hours or even a day beforehand.

Method 1
All you need to do is gather up old bags of bread that may have gone stale (not moldy) and place them on a flat    pan that is oven safe. Now, just set the temperature of the oven to around 200F to 230F degrees. The trick here is that you are not trying to burn the bread, just dry it out some more. If you do this for a couple hours, the bread will get really hard and crunchy - kind of like toast, but crunchier. Now, just take the bread and put them in a zip-top bag (you could even add some Italian seasonings, or rosemary and oregano with some garlic powder) and smash it up until there are no more large chunks so that all you have left is breadcrumbs.

Method 2
The second option is to use Ritz crackers, place them in a bag with seasonings (like Method 1) and smash it until all you have left is crumbs. However, I have not done this before for the chicken Parmesan. It should work...in theory. If anyone goes this route, please leave me a comment and let me know if it worked out for you.

Happy smashing!