Breadcrumbs

Stale bread dried and crumbled — the cook’s way of never wasting a loaf — the coating of schnitzel, katsu, croquettes and fried fish, the binder of meatballs and stuffings, and the crisp top of a gratin.

Where it comes from

Every bread-eating culture found uses for the loaf that had gone hard: soaked in milk and worked into meatballs and kofte to keep them tender, crumbled and fried in butter to top a gratin, dried and ground to coat anything to be fried. The Viennese schnitzel, the Milanese cotoletta, the Japanese tonkatsu, the Spanish croqueta, the Sicilian arancino and the English fish finger all depend on a crust of crumbs that fries golden and crisp while the inside cooks gently.

Two kinds of crumb behave differently. Fine, dry crumbs — from bread dried hard and ground — give a smooth, even, thin coating and are the classic for schnitzel. Coarse, flaky crumbs — Japanese panko, made from crustless bread baked by electric current and shredded into airy shards — fry into a lighter, crunchier, more open crust and absorb less oil; they have conquered the world’s fryers in a generation. Fresh crumbs from soft bread are for binding, stuffing and gratin tops rather than coating.

Varieties

• Fine dry breadcrumbs — Stale bread dried in a low oven and ground fine; for schnitzel, cotoletta, croquettes and dusting a baking tin.
• Panko — Japanese coarse flaky crumbs; light, crunchy, absorb less oil. For tonkatsu, ebi fry, korokke — and increasingly everything.
• Fresh breadcrumbs — Soft bread blitzed; for stuffings, meatballs, treacle tart and gratin tops fried in butter.
• Pangrattato — Italian: crumbs fried in olive oil with garlic, chilli or anchovy until golden — the ‘poor man’s Parmesan’ scattered over pasta.
• Cracker and matzo meal — Crushed crackers or matzo; for gefilte fish, matzo balls and Southern fried chicken coatings.
• Rusk — Dried, twice-baked bread crumb used as a filler in British sausages.

In the kitchen

The three-stage coating: flour, then beaten egg, then crumbs, pressing them on; rest the coated food ten minutes in the fridge so the crust sets, then fry in shallow oil or clarified butter at a moderate heat, turning once, until golden. Do not crowd the pan. Panko wants a slightly hotter oil and gives a more open crust.

For a gratin top, toss fresh or coarse crumbs with melted butter or oil and scatter over before baking; they brown while the dish heats. For meatballs, soak fresh crumbs or torn bread in milk before working them in — the soaked starch holds moisture and keeps the meat tender. Pangrattato is crumbs fried in a generous amount of good oil until crisp, seasoned, and used at once.

Choosing and keeping

Make your own from any stale bread: dry slices in a low oven until hard, then blitz or grate. Dry crumbs keep for months in a sealed jar; fresh crumbs a few days refrigerated or months frozen. Bought crumbs are often padded and dyed; panko is the exception and worth buying.

Sourdough and crusty breads make the best dry crumbs; soft white sandwich bread the best fresh ones. Gluten-free bread crumbs fine but fry less golden.

Breadcrumbs is tagged on 92 dishes from 62 countries in the atlas. These notes are written from general knowledge and carry no per-fact citation — see About.