Celebrate National Crouton Day with the help of this recipe courtesy of The Cheesecake Factory

When it comes to the Cheesecake Factory, there are plenty of menu items that come to mind right off the bat. But one thing that has also become synonymous with the restaurant is their brown bread. And now that they sell loaves of this iconic bread in grocery stores nationwide, we can’t help but be on the lookout for all the ways we can add this bread to our menu planning!

And on National Crouton Day (which just so happens to fall on May 13), what better way to celebrate all things crunchy deliciousness than with a special crouton recipe courtesy of the Cheesecake Factory and their brown bread?

With a special recipe straight out of the Cheesecake Factory Kitchen, we can celebrate this National Crouton Day with a perfect crunchy bite in any salad. And yes, it really is a super easy recipe to follow as long as you have that brown bread on hand. (It’s hard for us to not eat all the bread before it can even be transformed into croutons, but in this case, we made it happen.)

So how do we make these brown bread croutons? And what all do we need?

How to make croutons with The Cheesecake Factory brown bread

Take your salads to the next level with just four ingredients and six steps! With this “Brown Bread” Croutons recipe straight from The Cheesecake Factory Kitchen:

What you need:

• 1 of The Cheesecake Factory At Home™ Famous “Brown Bread” Mini Baguettes (And since these come in bags with multiple baguettes, you can make enough for an entire party.)
• 4 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1/4 teaspoon of coarse sea salt
• 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

What to do:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cut up your brown bread baguette into cubes between 1/2 inch to 3/4 of an inch. Add them to a mixing bowl.
3. Drizzle the melted butter over the top of the cubed bread and into the bowl along the sides.
4. Season the buttered cubes with the coarse salt, making sure to toss the cubes so that they get coated in the seasoning.
5. Place your cubes of bread in a layer on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove and stir on the baking sheet before adding it back to the oven for an additional 5 minutes.
6. Remove the baked (crisped) cubes from the oven and return them to the mixing bowl. Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the top and then toss them in the bowl to get them coated in the cheese. Next, move the cubes back over to the baking sheet in a single layer and allow them to cool off. Now you have croutons that can be tossed right into a salad or stored for later.

Basically, these are a super easy to make addition to any salad. Not only will these bring so much flavor to the mix, but they are actually really easy to make. And the fact that they really only required four ingredients just made them that much easier to incorporate into an every day salad.

Of course, now that we have this recipe for “Brown Bread” Croutons in our arsenal, every summer salad will be taken to the next level this year (and beyond).

But what do you think Guilty Eaters? Are we making these croutons for all of our salads going forward? Have you ever used leftover bread from The Cheesecake Factory to make croutons before? Let us know your thoughts down below.