The word crouton is derived from a French word meaning crust. Crouton refers to the sautéed or baked or re-baked pieces of breads which are used for a variety of purposes. The general perception being croutons come in small cube like shapes; the fact is they come in varied shapes and sizes. There are a variety of dishes which are made with use of croutons for example the French onion soup is topped with croutons. Croutons are also used in Caesar salad and to make stuffing for holiday foods. Though there are a variety of plain and seasoned croutons, the calorie content of each of them differs; here is the description of the calorie count as well as the nutritional value of croutons.
A single serving of plain croutons (one cup or 30gm) contains a total of 122 calories. Croutons are assigned a nutritional B+ grade. Of the total amount of calories, 18 come from fats. The division of the 2.0g fat content is given as 0.5g from saturated fats, 0.4gms from polyunsaturated fats and 0.9gms monounsaturated fats. They contain 209g of sodium and 3.6g of protein. The amounts of carbohydrates have been measured to be 22.1g of which 1.5g is from dietary fibres. On the positive note croutons contain iron, calcium, have no sugar and cholesterol, are low in saturated fat, high in selenium.
Mr. Cubbison’s fat free herb seasoned croutons contain 30 calories per serving (i.e. 2 tbsp/ 7.1g). Being graded D+ they have zero calories from fat, have 100 mg of sodium content and 1.0g of protein. The carbohydrate content in the croutons is 5.0g. The good points of these croutons are that they have no saturated fats, have no cholesterol and no sugar. But the fact that they are high in sodium acts as a negative point about these variants of croutons.
