Air-Fryer Croutons

There's a small culinary swindle that pre-bagged croutons get away with, and it's that they exist at all. Croutons are stale bread, oil, and heat. The recipe has not changed in five hundred years. And yet a bag of "Caesar croutons" costs five dollars and weighs less than a CD, and they taste like dust and the inside of a glove compartment. Make them yourself; it takes six minutes.

The trick is that they need to be cubed evenly so they crisp at the same rate. Tear them — don't cube them with a knife — irregular edges catch more oil and brown harder, which is exactly what you want for the texture. The photo is what you get: not perfectly uniform, which is the point, with the deep mahogany corners that say "I got this hot oil and I held it."

The bread matters less than you'd think. Sourdough is best because the crust adds structure, but you can do this with grocery-store white, day-old baguette ends, the heels of whatever loaf has been judging you from the breadbox for a week. You're going to add garlic powder and salt; the underlying bread is mostly the carrier.