Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled

bread Bread is a staple food prepared from a dough of flour (usually wheat) and water, usually by baking. Throughout recorded history and around the world, it has been an important part of many cultures' diet. It is one of the oldest human-made food ...

of various dryness, sometimes with

seasonings Seasoning is the process of supplementing food via herbs, spices, salts, and/or sugar, intended to enhance a particular flavour. General meaning Seasonings include herbs and spices, which are themselves frequently referred to as "seasonings". Ho ...

added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles,

stuffing Stuffing, filling, or dressing is an edible mixture, often composed of herbs and a starch such as bread, used to fill a cavity in the preparation of another food item. Many foods may be stuffed, including poultry, seafood, and vegetables. ...

poultry,

thickening A thickening agent or thickener is a substance which can increase the viscosity of a liquid without substantially changing its other properties. Edible thickeners are commonly used to thicken sauces, soups, and puddings without altering their ta ...

stew A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. A stew needs to have raw ingredients added to the gravy. Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables and m ...

s, adding inexpensive bulk to

soups Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingre ...

, meatloaves and similar foods, and making a crisp and crunchy covering for fried foods, especially

breaded cutlet Breaded cutlet is a dish made from coating a cutlet of meat with breading or batter and either frying or baking it. Breaded cutlet is known as schnitzel in German-speaking countries, cotoletta alla milanese in Italy, escalope in France, ''fi ...

s like

tonkatsu is a Japanese dish that consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. It involves coating slices of pork with panko (bread crumbs), and then frying them in oil. The two main types are fillet and loin. Tonkatsu is also the basis of other dis ...

and

schnitzel A schnitzel is a thin slice of meat. The meat is usually thinned by pounding with a meat tenderizer. Most commonly, the meat is breaded before frying. Breaded schnitzel is popular in many countries and is made using veal, pork, chicken, mutto ...

. The

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

variety of bread crumbs is called ''panko''.

Types

Dry

Dry breadcrumbs are made from dry breads which have been baked or toasted to remove most remaining moisture, and may have a sandy or even powdery texture. Bread crumbs are most easily produced by pulverizing slices of bread in a

food processor A food processor is a kitchen appliance used to facilitate repetitive tasks in the preparation of food. Today, the term almost always refers to an electric-motor-driven appliance, although there are some manual devices also referred to as "food ...

, using a steel blade to make coarse crumbs, or a grating blade to make fine crumbs. A

grater A grater, also known as a shredder, is a kitchen utensil used to grate foods into fine pieces. Uses Food preparation Several types of graters feature different sizes of grating slots, and can therefore aid in the preparation of a variety of ...

or similar tool will also do.

Fresh

The breads used to make soft or fresh bread crumbs are not quite as dry, so the crumbs are larger and produce a softer coating, crust, or stuffing. The ''crumb'' of ''bread crumb'' also refers to the texture of the soft, inner part of a bread loaf, as distinguished from the crust, or "skin".

Panko

is a type of flaky bread crumbs used in

Japanese cuisine Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan ( Japanese: ) is based on rice with miso soup and othe ...

as a crunchy coating for fried foods, such as ''

''. Panko is made from bread baked by electrical current, which yields a bread without a crust, and then grinding the bread to create fine slivers of crumb. It has a crisper, airier texture than most types of breading found in

Western cuisine European cuisine comprises the cuisines of Europe "European Cuisine."Asian markets, speciality stores, and many large

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

s. Panko is produced worldwide, particularly in Asian countries, including Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, China, and Vietnam.

Etymology

The Japanese first learned to make bread from Europeans. The word ''パン粉 (panko)'' is derived from ''pan'', giving us the word for bread in Japanese (derived from the Portuguese word "pão" for bread), and ''-粉 (-ko)'', a Japanese

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...

indicating "

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultur ...

", "coating", "crumb", or "powder" on occasion, when used as a suffix; (as in ''komeko'', "rice powder", ''sobako'', "

buckwheat Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as ''Fagop ...

flour", and ''komugiko'', "

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeological ...

flour").

Breading

Breading (also known as crumbing) is a dry

grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legume ...

-derived

food coating Coating is an process that consists of applying a liquid or a powder into the surface of an edible product to convey new (usually sensory) properties. Coating designates an operation as much as the result of it: the application of a layer and t ...

for a piece of food made from bread crumbs or a breading mixture with seasonings. Breading is well suited for

frying Frying is the cooking of food in oil or another fat. Similar to sautéing, pan-fried foods are generally turned over once or twice during cooking to make sure that the food is well-made, using tongs or a spatula, while sautéed foods are cooked ...

as it lends itself to creating a crisp coating around the food. Breading mixtures can be made of breadcrumb,

cornmeal Cornmeal is a meal (coarse flour) or a cell membrane ground from dried corn. It is a common staple food, and is ground to coarse, medium, and fine consistencies, but not as fine as wheat flour can be.Herbst, Sharon, ''Food Lover's Companion'' ...

, and

seasoning Seasoning is the process of supplementing food via herbs, spices, salts, and/or sugar, intended to enhance a particular flavour. General meaning Seasonings include herbs and spices, which are themselves frequently referred to as "seasonings". H ...

that the item to be breaded is dredged in before cooking. If the item to be breaded is too dry for the coating to stick, the item may first be moistened with

buttermilk Buttermilk is a fermented dairy drink. Traditionally, it was the liquid left behind after churning butter out of cultured cream. As most modern butter in western countries is not made with cultured cream but uncultured sweet cream, most mod ...

, raw

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

egg wash An egg wash is beaten eggs, sometimes mixed with another liquid such as water or milk, which is sometimes brushed onto the surface of a pastry before baking. Egg washes are also used as a step in the process of breading foods, providing a subs ...

or other liquid. Breading contrasts with batter, which is a grain-based liquid coating for food that produces a smoother and finer texture, but which can be softer overall.

In popular culture

In the fairy tale "

Hansel and Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; german: Hänsel und Gretel ) is a German fairy tale collected by the German Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 in ''Grimm's Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). It is also known as Little Step Brother and Little Step Sister. Hansel ...

", breadcrumbs are used by Hansel and Gretel to track their footpath. However, the bread crumbs were eventually eaten by birds, subsequently leading them to become lost in the woods. The popularity of breadcrumbs in the fairy tale led to the use of the word "

breadcrumb Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thickening ...

" as a navigation element that allows users to keep track of their locations within programs or documents.

Gallery

File:990402-ians-recipe-01-IMG 4724.jpg, Bread fried in breadcrumbs and stuffed with chicken and corn File:Panko - Paprika - 3.jpg, Panko breadcrumbs with paprika flavour File:Panko - White - 2.jpg, Panko white breadcrumbs File:971027-I'ANS-ATN-IMG 8772.jpg, IANS simple breadcrumbs File:Tonkatsu at Butagumi in Nishi-Azabu.jpg, alt=Close up of Japanese breaded tonkatsu, Panko on

Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish that consists of a breaded, deep-fried pork cutlet. It involves coating slices of pork with panko (bread crumbs), and then frying them in oil. The two main types are fillet and loin. Tonkatsu is also the basis of other dis ...

File:971110-ILIA-Vanak-IMG 8870-2.jpg, alt=Fried shrimp, Fried shrimp with panko breadcrumbs File:980722-Recipe-05-Shrimps-IMG 8660.jpg, alt=Shrimps with Panko, Shrimp coated by panko breadcrumbs

References

{{Authority control Food ingredients Crumbs Food industry