Better Than Store-Bought Melba Toast
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If you’ve never heard of Melba Toast before, prepare to meet your new favorite snack. These thin, buttery, crisp slices of bread are impossible to resist!
Growing up, I looked forward to the day my mom made Melba Toast like I looked forward to a holiday. She only made it a few times a year, and for the week that followed, neither of us could keep ourselves from opening up the Tupperware container and sneaking a crunchy bite…or two…or nine.
This Melba Toast recipe only has two ingredients, but don’t let the simplicity fool you. This is one of the best and most versatile snacks you can make.
What is Melba Toast?
Traditional Melba Toast is simply very thin slices of bread toasted in the oven until dry and crisp. It’s often served alongside soups or salads or as a base for spreads, cheeses, or sandwich fixings. You can find it in the grocery store in the snack aisle, but the store bought version doesn’t even come CLOSE to this homemade Melba Toast.
How to Make Melba Toast
The main thing that sets my mom’s Melba Toast recipe apart is butter. That one additional ingredient makes all the difference.
- To make the toast, start with a very thin sliced bread, or slice your own. You can use any kind of bread for the recipe, but we usually use Pepperidge Farm’s very thin slice white bread. This bread is just the right thickness for the toast and saves the hassle of trying to slice uniformly thin slices yourself.
- Grab a stack of bread and some good quality softened butter. Don’t skimp on the butter here–it’s the main flavor agent, so the quality makes a difference. We really love Challenge and Plugra butter for this.
- Spread both sides of the bread slices with the butter, then line them up on a baking tray. Set them in a low 250 degree oven to bake. I like to flip them halfway through to make sure they get nice and golden on both sides.
- That’s it! In about 40 minutes you’ll have magical, melt-in-your-mouth Melba Toast.
Melba Toast Toppings
Melba Toast ToppingsIf you have the will power to resist eating the toast pieces all by themselves (props to you!), there are so many fun and delicious ways to use Melba Toast.
If you leave the toast slices whole, you can use them in the same way you would crostini. It’s the perfect base for meats and cheeses, spreads, or salads. It’s excellent with Smoked Salmon Egg Salad (rye bread would be especially delicious here) or Cranberry Pistachio Chicken Salad. It also makes the most divine crunchy Avocado Toast.
You can also break the toast into pieces and use them as a side for dips like Hot Crab Dip, Cheesy Bean Dip, or Hot Jalapeno Corn Dip.
Crumbled, Melba Toast stands in for croutons on salad (try it on That Good Salad), or as a nice crispy finish to a bowl of Garden Fresh Tomato Basil Soup.
You can even use the crumbs in place of Panko on this Creamy Baked Macaroni Cheese or add it to casseroles like this Cheesy Vegetarian Spaghetti Squash Casserole for a crunchy, buttery topping.
Variations on Melba Toast
This simple recipe is begging for you to take it and make it your own.
Feel free to experiment with different kinds of bread or seasonings. Rye, wheat, or honey oat are all great bread options.
For seasonings, try mixing garlic powder into the butter, or take things in an entirely different direction with a sprinkling of cayenne pepper, homemade ranch seasoning, or curry powder.
I hope you find this snack just as delightful as we do!
Melba Toast
Ingredients
- 30 slices bread (sliced very thin)
- 2 sticks high quality salted butter (at room temperature (I like Challenge or Plugra))
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.
- Spread a thin layer of butter on both sides of each slice of bread. If you'd like the toasts to be in smaller, uniform pieces, cut it into squares or triangles at this point. Otherwise, leave it whole.
- Line the slices up on a few baking sheets, and place in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes then flip the slices the over. Continue to bake for another 15-25 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and very crisp.
- Allow the toast to cool, then either leave it whole and use for dips, avocado toast, or crostini OR crumble the bread to use as a topping for soups and salads.
Notes
- Any flavor of bread can be used for this recipe, but I am partial to Pepperidge Farm's Very Thin Sliced White Bread.
- Feel free to experiment with other seasonings, like garlic powder, ranch, or cayenne.
To make Melba toast, you just toast bread on both sides and then cut the slice of toast in half through the crust. This leaves you with two very thin slices toasted on one side. You just need to put them in the oven to finish baking and crisp up. There is no butter on Melba toast.
I can’t wait to try this with Keto bread as I’m on a low carb diet. This sounds perfect! Thank you!
I wanted to sale your melba toast
India mein church gate as I run a super market n lot of enquiry come to my shop
Thank you for this recipe!
I had some Italian bread in the freezer, sliced it thin while still frozen. Sprayed a tiny bit of olive oil and sprinkled a basil garlic seasoning before baking. I added it to my charcuterie board. Beautiful!
Can the recipe come before your life story and recommendations? It used to be nice like that. Now it’s just a pain and an eyesore cry of affection.
Wow. You’re not nice. This is a personal blog. Get it?
Hi I live in France so can’t buy melba toast or very thin sliced bread so I bought ordinary crust less and rolled it thinner with a rolling pin. I found that it baked quicker than the recipe said – perhaps it was my oven, I don’t know. So second time of trying I halved the baking time and perfect.
I made this to go with a smoked salmon and avocado starter for a friend’s birthday and everyone loved it – will definitely be making this again
Does it matter if the slices are a bit thick? I would love to try it but only have slightly thick slices on hand.
You can definitely try with thicker bread, but it will take longer for it to dry out. My only concern would be that the outside might burn before the inside is crisped through.
Ooooo! (As I’m running to the freezer.)
Last week I baked 2 loaves of half whole wheat sourdough sandwich bread. Bad idea! It was soooo hot here in southern California and the bread over proofed! (What was I thinking???) Ended up with some pretty dense bread that only came up to the top edge of the loaf pan. I absolutely hate to throw anything away so in the freezer it went while thinking, “Darn it! Oh well, we’ll just have to muscle through these 2 loaves before I bake any more.”
This is a perfect solution! Thank you!!! Can’t wait to taste my newest (re)creation!
Hooray! I hope this breathes some new (crispy, buttery) life into your sandwich bread!
Oh my goodness!! I have been baking my own bread for only about a month. Had a couple of loaves that didn’t rise all the way and then ran across this recipe. I’ve wanted Melba toast for 25 years. So I made Homemade Sweet Amish Friendship Bread, sliced it thin after it cooled, toasted for 10 minutes; flipped and buttered 1 side and toasted again for 10 minutes, flipped again and toasted for 10 more. Man-o-man is it the best ever!!
This made my day! I’m so glad you enjoyed the Melba Toast. Thanks for coming back to let me know.
It keeps for about a week in an airtight container.
How long can you store the toast?
Oh my gosh these are so good! I went with the whole wheat version and was truly happy with the results. Can’t wait to get a loaf of the white bread next time and maybe try some cocktail rye bread slices one day too. So simple and much tastier than the store bought stuff! Yum!
Yay! I’m so glad to hear that. I think these would be AMAZING with rye bread. Thanks for coming back to let me know you loved the Melba Toast!