Buttery, crispy and decidedly not diet food, fried bread makes a delicious side dish or a yummy solo snack.
Not to be confused with the equally delicious Native American fry bread, fried bread is simply bread cooked in a frying pan or on a griddle with a large amount of butter, oil or other fat used to crisp and flavor it.
Think of a grilled cheese sandwich — but with just the rich and toasty bread.
If you’ve ever made toad/frog/egg in the hole or eggs in a basket and fried the center circle of bread that is cut out for the egg, you know how tasty fried bread is.
“Fried bread is best served straight up, and used to mop up the yolks of a sunny side up egg or two,” Rebecca Firkser of MyRecipes said in her write-up on fried bread.
She suggests cooking each side of bread in lots of butter or oil for 2-3 minutes. Before flipping to the other side, make sure there’s still enough butter or oil in the pan to cook the other half and make it “sufficiently charred and glistening with fat.”
This type of toast may be best known for being served with a full English or Irish breakfast along with mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, beans, and assorted fried meats.
Fried bread is much more saturated with butter or oil than regular toast and it doesn’t include an egg-based batter, as you’d use with French toast.
“It’s the perfect storm of rich flavor, next-level crispiness, and adaptability,” Kendra Vaculin of Epicurious noted. “Unlike the dry toast you can make in a toaster (or under the broiler in your oven), slices fried in oil are rich and luxurious; that bit of extra fat goes a long way in the flavor department.”
Vaculin prefers oil over butter for her fried bread. She quickly fries one side of a piece of bread in a skillet just enough to coat it, then flips it over and cooks the other side until done. Then, she flips it over again to finish the first side.
Vaculin says you can try different types of oil like sesame oil, ghee or coconut oil to get a different flavor profile. She also adds spices, garlic or shallots to olive oil for extra seasoning.
Serve your fried bread with pasta, eggs, stews and a hearty soup — or just eat it by itself.
Doesn’t fried bread sound like a recipe you need to try right now?
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It lacks fibre, vitamins, and minerals that are important for overall health. “A diet including a lot of fried foods, including fried bread, has been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and other chronic health conditions.”
Unlike the dry toast you can make in a toaster (or under the broiler in your oven), slices fried in oil are rich and luxurious; that bit of extra fat goes a long way in the flavor department.
As a result, white bread is classified as a high glycemic index (high-GI) food. Studies show that consuming low-GI foods results in feeling fuller than when eating foods with a high GI. In other words, high-GI foods just don't fill you up like other foods do, which can cause overeating and weight gain.
The highly processed flour and additives in white, packaged bread can make it unhealthful. Consuming too much white bread can contribute to obesity, heart disease, and diabetes. However, buying bread with the word “whole” as the first ingredient still does not guarantee a healthful product. It is only the first step.
Across the United States, fry bread is hands-down the most ubiquitous Native American food. For tribal communities, the crispy circle of pillowy deep-fried dough represents many seemingly contradictory concepts: love, comfort, celebration, community, survival, colonialism, oppression, tragedy.
Fried Bread is just toast – except that instead of being toasted by the hot, dry heat inside a toaster, it's "toasted" in a hot pan with oil or some other fat. Some times, the bread slices are put into a skillet to "fry" in a light coating of hot oil (olive oil, say) or hot fat (like butter or bacon grease).
The high temperature of the oil causes the water in the food to evaporate, creating a crispy exterior and a juicy interior. The oil also adds a rich and savory flavor to the food, as well as a moist and tender texture.
Bagels are traditionally made from yeasted wheat dough that is shaped by hand into a torus or ring, briefly boiled in water, and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.
According to many historians, American Indians, usually those connected with the Southwest, developed fry bread during the mid- to late-nineteenth century as the U.S. government began relocating and confining these peoples.
French toast, which isn't really toast, is made from bread dipped in seasoned, beaten egg. This is then shallow fried. Fried bread is just that, bread that is fried.
The phrase “French Toast” first appeared in print in the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink in 1871. But it is known by a variety of names including German toast, eggy bread, French-fried bread, gypsy toast, Poor Knights of Windsor, Spanish toast, nun's toast, and pain perdu which means “lost bread” in French.
Frybread (also spelled fry bread) is a dish of the indigenous people of North America that is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard.
The journalist and documentary filmmaker Patty Talahongva, who identifies as Hopi of the Corn Clan, calls frybread "Die Bread" and associates it with diseases endemic to Native Americans, including gallbladder disease, diabetes, and more.
Bread is high in carbs, low in micronutrients, and its gluten and antinutrient contents may cause issues for some people. Still, it's often enriched with extra nutrients, and whole-grain or sprouted varieties may bestow several health benefits. In moderation, bread can be enjoyed as part of a healthy diet.
Although the difference isn't huge, toast has fewer carbohydrates than bread due to the chemical reaction that occurs. On the other hand, if bread is toasted until it is burnt, a potentially carcinogenic compound called acrylamide can form.
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