HOME MADE PANKO CRUMBS

Panko (breading) crumbs are the absolute best for many, many recipes. I recently used them to turn "ho-hum" shrimp into "wow, these are good" shrimp.  I've heard of people using them in meatloaf and meatballs (I haven't tried that yet) as well as a jillion other recipes.

My biggest problem with panko bread crumbs is that they can be expensive AND they are not something I routinely keep in my pantry.  That's why I was thrilled to make this discovery!!

Panko bread crumbs are different from standard bread crumbs because they are a made from shredded bread.  With that in mind, I FROZE 4 slices of regular (cheap) sandwich bread. I  then cut the crusts off and cut the resulting "squares" of sandwich bread in half.  I then stacked them up and fed them through the SHREDDER in my food processor.  This is what they looked like:

They were light and fluffy, just like commercial Panko crumbs!!

I then sprinkled them evenly over a dry cookie sheet, gently spreading them as thin as I could and baked them in a pre-heated  300° oven for about 10 minutes.  Actually, they were dry in 8 minutes, but I let them stay in their for a couple more minutes to be sure.  Just don't let them turn color.

This "recipe" will make about 1½ cups of crumbs, so if you double the recipe, make sure you bake it on two cookie sheets so the crumbs can spread out and dry properly.

I'm thinking of making whole wheat panko crumbs next!!