How to Make your Food Lovely & Crunchy

A great way to really up the ante on your food is to add a crunchy contrast so here are lots of ways to do this. In no particular order …

Croutons

These are a quick and easy way to enhance not just soup, but all sorts of dishes and they are so much better and so much cheaper than buying ready made!

Here’s lots of crouton information – how to make your own croutons, ways to make them just the way you want them with different seasonings, fats, and additions, using alternative breads and cakes and uses for croutons, other than soup.

Pangrattato

This is Italian for bread crumbs but these are lovely crisp breadcrumbs, so easy to make, that can add texture to all sorts of meals. As with croutons above, they are also very cheap. So here’s how to make pangrattato, how to flavour it and vary it and great ways to us it.

Panko Crumbs

Panko crumbs are a great thing to keep in the Storecupboard – they give a much crunchier coating to fried and baked foods than normal breadcrumbs. Here’s lots of ways to make the most of panko crumbs.

Fritters

Fritters are a good way to make crunchy meals out of all sorts of ingredients and leftovers. Here’s lots of fritter recipes, ideas and info – for instance this is a cashew nut fritter so has two chances of being crunchy!

Bacon – 3 Crunchy Ideas

Here are three ways I use bacon to add texture (and flavour of course) to a meal …

Bacon Salt, which only requires one rasher of bacon to make a delicious crispy seasoning. Here’s how to make bacon salt.

Homemade Bacon Bits – cook the bacon in a medium oven, 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6. or so until it is lovely and crisp. Drain off any fat and cool Once cool and crisp break or crush intco small pieces and store in an airtight container in the freezer. I used to make pork burgers and fold some of these bacon bits into the meat before cooking. They were very popular. And …

Caramelised Bacon

This is best made with smoky bacon but all bacon is good this way.

~   Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.
~   Line a rimmed baking tray with parchment and grease well.
~   Dredge bacon slice(s) in soft light brown sugar.
~   Lay without touching on the tray and bake, turning the rashers now
     and then until caramelised, 10-15 minutes.
~   Cool at room temperature and serve within 3 or 4 hours.

The longer you cook it (within reason!) the crisper it will end up, but it won’t actually become crisp till it cools. Good with pancakes and maple syrup ice cream.

Crunchy Coatings for Fried Foods

An appropriate coating applied to food before frying not only protects it from the heat but also makes it more delicious – here’s 9 Crispy Fried Food Coatings including Panko crumbs which are super crisp Japanese style breadcrumbs with which you can add a lovely crisp texture to all sorts of dishes

Nut Brittle/Praline

Nut brittle can be broken into pieces to add a bit of crunch to a dish but, even better, is praline which is made by grinding up or smashing nut brittle and be added to or sprinkled on all sorts of things. Details here plus lots of other ideas for nuts, which are also crunchy!

Granola

Granola is lovely and crunchy and delicious and can be added to all sorts of dishes, I love it on Greek yogurt drizzled with honey –  here’s some great ways to use granola.

Caramel

Caramel shards, crushed caramel or caramel toppings are a great way to add gorgeous crunchiness to cakes, ice creams, desserts etc. Here’s how to make caramel plus how to make crème brulée and some other ways to use a blowtorch to make things crunchy in the kitchen!

Meringues

These are a lovely crunchy contrast to a creamy dessert. Here’s my easy failproof meringue recipe with lots of yummy variations.

There are, of course, many other things you can add to a dish to enhance its crispiness; pork scratchings, crisps (aka chips in the USA), broken biscuits, nuts, popcorn (here is a lovely popcorn recipe appropriately called Nutty Popcorn Crunch), etc. Lovely crispy toast is good with all sorts of things (and this very easy homemade bread recipe makes the best toast ever imho) and try these variations on cinnamon toast.

Why do we like crunchy food?

I think it may be because it contrasts with other soft creamy, smooth textures in a meal and that makes it more interesting and enjoyable. However, I have recently read 4 reasons that we love crunchy food and one is because it is loud when we eat it and that makes us pay more attention to our food. I’m not sure but it might be that! Whatever it is I love it!

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