Buttery, crispy and decidedly not diet food, fried bread makes a delicious side dish or a yummy solo snack.
Not to be confused with the equally delicious Native American fry bread, fried bread is simply bread cooked in a frying pan or on a griddle with a large amount of butter, oil or other fat used to crisp and flavor it.
Think of a grilled cheese sandwich — but with just the rich and toasty bread.
If you’ve ever made toad/frog/egg in the hole or eggs in a basket and fried the center circle of bread that is cut out for the egg, you know how tasty fried bread is.
“Fried bread is best served straight up, and used to mop up the yolks of a sunny side up egg or two,” Rebecca Firkser of MyRecipes said in her write-up on fried bread.
She suggests cooking each side of bread in lots of butter or oil for 2-3 minutes. Before flipping to the other side, make sure there’s still enough butter or oil in the pan to cook the other half and make it “sufficiently charred and glistening with fat.”
This type of toast may be best known for being served with a full English or Irish breakfast along with mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, beans, and assorted fried meats.
Fried bread is much more saturated with butter or oil than regular toast and it doesn’t include an egg-based batter, as you’d use with French toast.
“It’s the perfect storm of rich flavor, next-level crispiness, and adaptability,” Kendra Vaculin of Epicurious noted. “Unlike the dry toast you can make in a toaster (or under the broiler in your oven), slices fried in oil are rich and luxurious; that bit of extra fat goes a long way in the flavor department.”
Vaculin prefers oil over butter for her fried bread. She quickly fries one side of a piece of bread in a skillet just enough to coat it, then flips it over and cooks the other side until done. Then, she flips it over again to finish the first side.
Vaculin says you can try different types of oil like sesame oil, ghee or coconut oil to get a different flavor profile. She also adds spices, garlic or shallots to olive oil for extra seasoning.
Serve your fried bread with pasta, eggs, stews and a hearty soup — or just eat it by itself.
Doesn’t fried bread sound like a recipe you need to try right now?
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