Welcome to The Move, a place for Eater’s editors to reveal their recommendations and pro dining tips — sometimes thoughtful, sometimes weird, but always someone’s go-to move.
Croutons are, objectively, a perfect food. What’s not to love about little chunks of bread that have been crisped in butter and showered in spices? They are extremely versatile, as satisfying on top of a bountiful salad of vinaigrette-dressed greens as they are eaten by hand, over the sink at 3 a.m. like a drunk raccoon. Even the admittedly inferior store-bought kind are still pretty great, fake butter and all.
But if you don’t have any day-old bread to make your own or a bag from the store, it's all too easy to forgo the crunch in your salad. But you don't have to. Throughout the pandemic, I’ve made a slew of interesting cooking substitutions with varying levels of success, but have definitely learned that with a little creativity, anything can be a crouton.
Inspiration struck as I assembled a salad with spring mix and other random vegetables from my fridge, plus a little day-old rotisserie chicken; I realized that the tiny bag of Texas Toast croutons I normally keep in my pantry was empty. I had no good bread to cut into chunks and lovingly toss with olive oil before putting it into my broiler, and I was distraught. Any good salad needs something crunchy, and little strips of bell pepper just didn’t offer the texture I was looking for. And then I saw the mostly empty bag of crunchy Cheetos sitting on the bottom shelf, and it felt like an epiphany.
It sounds absurd. There’s no reason why radioactive-orange Cheetos and a pile of spring mix coated in buttermilk-dill dressing should work together, but they do. Crushed into bite-size pieces, Cheetos bring a punch of salty cheesiness which plays well with the bitterness of the greens and the acidity of a vinaigrette. Bonus: Whatever chemical magic keeps them from going stale after months on the shelf also helps them stay crunchy despite the excess moisture from the dressing.