Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Panko Breadcrumbs

Panko breadcrumbs are a Japanese version of dry bread crumbs. The recipe, which is very easy, I found out recently and fell in love with it. The white panko is made from white bread with the crust removed, and the tan panko uses both the bread and the crust, sometimes I use wholewheat bread.

Ingredients
4 white bread slices (to make 1 cup of fresh panko)

Directions
1) Trimm off the crusts of the bread slices.

2) With a food processor, push chunks of bread through the shredding disk to make coarse crumbs.

3) Spread the crumbs on a baking sheet and bake at 300ºF/150ºC for 6 to 8 minutes.

The crumbs should be dry, not toasted and they should not be brown. Shake the sheet twice during baking.

You can flavor your dry or fresh bread crumbs with spices and herbs.

Panko can also be substituted for ordinary bread crumbs as coating food for frying, filling for meatloafs, meatballs and burgers, and as toppings for fish, salads, vegetables, and casserole dishes.


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is such a timely entry. The other day the Washinton Post published a review of a new cookbook (the name of which escapes me) and one of the criticisms was that many of its recipes called for panko - and where can the average person get panko? I was wondering the same thing myself until your post. Brilliant!

Ari (Baking and Books)

diyadear said...

hey cris,
we do it with a slight difference.. instead for shredding the bread, we cut it to cubes n make it crisp by heating in a pn before baking :)

Andrea said...

This is a great easy way to make panko (and cheap, too)!

Cris said...

Ari, such a coincidence! So, panko is one of the easiest things go to, and it sure spices up any dish! I usually flavor it with herbs and a little salt.

Diyadear, that's a nice alternative you have! That way you described they look more like croutons, or do you cut them very small? Thanks!

Andrea, and you can freeze it too and have it handy anytime!

Val said...

Hi Cris, just catching up on your blog, I didn't realise you weren't on my Google Reader list. :(

I'm just wondering what makes panko breadcrumbs (love the name!) different from other breadcrumbs? I will try some of your recipes using it too, especially the fish one. We rarely eat fish at home because I don't feel confident cooking it. But that recipe looks easy. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Just saw a recipe for fish, baked with panko, and only this weekend I had been thinking "Now what were those Japanese breadcrumbs called that I saw on Chris's blog??" I'll be making them again soon!

Val (from Val has her say)

Rebekah said...

Hi, thank you for posting this! I found a recipe today for healthier "fried" chicken, and it calls for panko. I just knew I could find a scratch recipe for it somewhere, and thanks to google and your blog, I did :) I now have a use for all those loaf heels that no one wants in their sandwiches!