A Quick and Easy Way To Turn Crackers Into Breadcrumbs

Just stumble on a recipe that calls for chopped or crushed crackers?

Wondering what’s the best way to do it?

You’re not alone. It turns out that lots of recipes use crackers as an ingredient. They’re often employed as a breadcrumb alternative, or the beginnings of a crunchy coating, and the recipe will almost always call for you to cut, chop, or smash them down into little pieces. Before you shove a bunch of crackers into a plastic bag, and run to the garage to get your hammer, continue reading to discover one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce whole crackers into the perfect consistency for cooking and baking.

You won’t waste a bunch of food, and you’ll avoid making a huge mess, and you won’t need a fancy electric appliance to do it. As an added bonus, you’ll also end up with way better results, and the ability to control the consistency more accurately. When chopping and smashing by hand, it can be quite difficult to achieve uniform results, and when using an electric machine, you may take it too far, but a manual food chopper will produce ideal results in a short amount of time, and with very little skill or effort.

When you have better, more consistently sized crumbs, anything you make or bake will be way better in the end.

Nobody likes to bite down on a crispy piece of breaded chicken only to chew off a whole piece of cracker, but when minced down to the perfect size, there may be no better topping option when baking crunchy chicken as an alternative to frying. To ensure the proper consistency, you can take a lot of time and tedious effort to do it by hand, you can use an electric food processor, or you can use the tool we carry to get the job done in record time, and with professional looking results.

Top 2 Ways To Make Breadcrumbs From Crackers

Turning crackers into bread crumbs is a simple process that can be done using a food processor or by hand. Here’s how to do it:

1. Use an Electric Food Processor:

Gather your ingredients: You’ll need the crackers of your choice and a food processor.
Break the crackers: If the crackers are large or whole, break them into smaller pieces to make them easier to process.
Load the food processor: Place the broken crackers into the food processor bowl.
Pulse or process: Close the lid of the food processor and pulse or process the crackers until they reach the desired consistency. You can make fine crumbs for breading or coarser crumbs for toppings, depending on your recipe.
Check and adjust: Open the food processor and check the texture of the crumbs. If you want them finer, process them for a few more seconds.
Store the crumbs: Transfer the cracker crumbs to an airtight container and store them in a cool, dry place for later use.

2. Do It By Hand:

Gather your ingredients: You’ll need the crackers of your choice and a sturdy seal-able plastic bag or a rolling pin.
Break the crackers: If the crackers are large or whole, break them into smaller pieces with your hands.
Place crackers in a bag: Put the broken crackers into the seal-able plastic bag.
Seal the bag: Press out any excess air from the bag and seal it securely.
Crush the crackers: Use a rolling pin or a heavy object to crush the crackers inside the bag. Roll the rolling pin over the crackers until they are finely crushed.
Check and adjust: Open the bag and check the texture of the crumbs. If you want them finer, continue crushing until you achieve the desired consistency.
Store the crumbs: Transfer the cracker crumbs to an airtight container and store them in a cool, dry place for later use.

A Quick And Easy Way To Make Breadcrumbs From Crackers

You can do this job using a regular, electric food processor, but cleaning up is a pain, and it can be difficult to avoid over processing the crackers. For this reason, a manual chopper and food processor is preferred.

It doesn’t really increase the amount of time it’ll take, or make the job more difficult, but it does allow you to pay close attention in order to produce the exact size crumb you prefer. You can quickly chop into large chunks, or you can continue to reduce the size. If you keep going, you can turn the crackers into a fine dust, but when you stop anywhere in between, you’ll end up with the exact size you need.

The chopping action is quite gentle, so you’ll never have to worry about ruining the crackers in the process, and you’ll always end up with the perfect ingredient for the recipe you are working with.

How The Manual Chopper Works

Using one of our manual choppers is easy. We do carry several options, each with a variety of accessories, but they all work in a very similar way. You either pull a handle, or turn a crank to activate the chopping blade. In the example below, we’re using one of our crank-top choppers, so you just rotate the large handle at the top to make the blades spin inside the container.

You can load in up to 4 cups of crackers or anything else, and thanks to the design, a simple, effortless spin will cause the stuff inside to quickly reduce down to small pieces. Because you are operating it manually, you won’t have to worry about chopping too much. Simply keep your eye on the ingredients inside, and then stop when it looks like you have the ideal consistency.

You can quickly twist the lid off to take a look inside, and then continue chopping if you would like your crumbs to be smaller. All of the mess will be contained inside the chopper, and when you finish, you can place it in your dishwasher for cleaning, so maintenance is as simple as using it.

These choppers are perfect for quickly chopping or crushing golden round crackers for cooking or baking, but you can use them for all sorts of other stuff too. Get one to make your next impromptu recipe easier to manage, but keep it on hand to make fun stuff like salsa, jam, or guacamole. Thanks to the functionality, it’ll easily pay for itself after just a few uses.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1: Add the Crackers To The Container

To begin making your breadcrumbs, simply dump the crackers into the chopping container. You can fill the container pretty full, but you’ll want to make sure that the blade can spin freely. If you overload the chopper, it’ll be difficult to spin the handle or operate the blades, but when loaded correctly, rotation should be effortless.

Step 2: Secure The Lid

Once the crackers are inside the chamber, take the lid, align it properly, then secure it to the to the top. Make sure to cover the front, pouring spout, and the opening at the top before you start chopping to avoid anything escaping while you work.

breadcrumbs from chopped golden round crackers

Step 3: Spin To Chop

Once you have it set up correctly, place one hand on the chopper, and one hand on the top crank handle, and begin to spin. If you feel resistance, rotate in the opposite direction for a quarter turn, then proceed to continue spinning. As you turn the top handle, the blades inside will rotate to chop the crackers. It’ll only take a few seconds, and a small number of turns to get the job done, and you can view your progress by looking through the side of the bowl. The faster you spin the faster you will chop, but using a slow and steady technique works best for this job.

Step 4: Inspect Your Results

Once you think the chopping is done, simply twist off the lid to take a look. In this case, we had reduced the size quite a bit, but the crumbs were not quite small enough for our use. To get them even smaller, we simply placed the lid back on, and gave it a few more spins. When working with crackers, the initial chopping takes some effort, but the smaller the particles get, the easier it is to chop. To get the perfect consistency for your needs, keep checking and chopping until the crumbs look right.

Perfectly chopped breadcrumbs from crackers

Before and After

After a second bit of chopping, we had the crumbs looking perfect for our recipe. The whole process only took a few minutes, and the actual chopping could have been accomplished in a matter of seconds.

Take a look at the image below. It shows the crackers before and after, in a side-by-side image. Those delicious golden rounds were processed into the perfect breadcrumb mixture with very little time and effort involved. You can even continue mixing your recipe right in the bowl because the rotating blades are completely removable, so you can take them out and use the container as a mixing bowl for added convenience and mess reduction.

Turning Crackers To breadcrumbs - before and after

Cracker crumbs can be used as a substitute for bread crumbs in various recipes, such as breading for chicken or fish, as a topping for casseroles, or in meatball or meatloaf mixtures. They add a delicious crunch and flavor to dishes, making them a versatile ingredient in the kitchen.

Save the hammer for building a fort, and avoid pounding and beating crackers into the right consistency, but don’t resort to an expensive, or overly complicated machine either. Plastic bags get holes, heavy things like hammers create dust, and chopping with a knife takes nearly forever. If you use an electric processor, the cleanup will be extensive, and it may turn your crackers into dust because it’s so powerful. With a manual food chopper on hand, you’ll save time and make the job easy.

There is no faster way to produce consistent results, because other options don’t allow for the same level of control. Lower quality manual choppers would have a hard time with this job, but the sharp blades, and superior design of the ones we carry ensure easy chopping and perfect results. Spend less time in the kitchen, and make yourself look better at the same time. Your friends and family will love the dishes and baked goods you create with your fresh breadcrumbs made from crackers.

Have a better way to make breadcrumbs from crackers? Please share with everyone else. We could all use a good technique for this task, so share yours in the comments section below.