My very first real success! Thanks to Grandma Martha’s patience, I have now mastered her famous recipe−most probably because I made her stay on the phone and walk me through each step “holding my hand” and offering much needed emotional support.
I bake this kugel in our family-heirloom, grease-stained, metal loaf pan. To my surprise, it even comes out great (with the quantities doubled) in a 9 x 13-inch disposable pan! It’s a dish made from leftovers, yet a novelty at the table. What could be better?
Challah Kugel
Servings
6 Servings
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large loaves day-old or stale water challah crusts removed and cubed as for croutons
- 2 tablespoons Consommé Mix
- 1/8 teaspoon coarse black pepper
- 3 eggs beaten
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Place oil in a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan and place in oven.
- Place cubed challah in a colander and wet it quickly and lightly; put your fingers under the running water to lighten the flow, moving the colander so none of the bread gets too wet. Sprinkle with just enough water to dampen challah; do not drench it.
- Squeeze out excess water. Challah should look and feel like wet rags.
- In a large bowl, gently fold together challah, consommé mix, pepper, eggs, baking powder and bread crumbs. Don’t over mix, but evenly disperse ingredients. The mixture should still be lumpy.
- Remove loaf pan from oven and pour challah mixture into loaf pan.
- Lower oven temperature to 375°F. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes until top is golden to dark brown and crunchy.
- Cut into squares and serve warm.
Tips
- Water challah is essential to this dish’s success: Do not use egg challah.
- If you don’t have enough leftover scraps, you can fake stale old bread. Just bake slices of fresh bread on a cookie sheet for approximately 30 minutes at about 200°F. If the heat is too high your bread will toast, which is exactly what you don’t want. The goal is to just suck the moisture out of it.
- Recipe Courtesy of QUICK & KOSHER Recipes From The Bride Who Knew Nothing by Jamie Geller (Feldheim 2007) – BUY NOW
Love this comment! So I have found that if you take off the crusts you can use almost any bread (challah, hamburger buns, rye etc…) and no one will notice!!! But I love the crust-on efficient approach!!! XO
I’ve made it with crusts still attached. I’ve also thrown in scraps of rye bread ends and all different textures. I get different responses: the “it should have the same consistency as itself” type people say it is all wrong. My kids tell me they like surprises in every bite. It’s similar to making an apple dish that calls for peeled apples but putting in washed unpeeled apples. As long as you don’t mind the consistency, it’s different but also great. I waiver between calling it healthier (with apple peels or even potato peels in potato kugel), lazier vs more efficient, and we all agree saves tons of time.
YES onion soup will be delish!!! and you would need about 12 rolls (approx 6 rolls = 1 large challah) — hope you LOVE it!
This looks great – I have been looking for a non-sweet way of using up my frozen challa before pesach! 2 questions- I normally buy my challa in rolls – how many rolls would you use for this recipe? Also, I do not have consomme but I do have onion soup mix – do you think that can that be substituted? Thank you!!!
Actually you can use any kind of challah and even buns or rolls, any bread will really work.
Thanks!
In the written recipe it says use water challah, not egg challah, however in the video you don’t mention that. It looked like you used egg challah in the video. Please clarify. Thanks. I can’t wait to make this .
Sounds absolutely delicious, have to try that variation.
This is essentially a pareve, savory bread pudding. I took lots and lots of leftover challah from our shul’s kiddush lunches and made a milchig bread pudding with chocolate chips and a pecan streusal topping. It was fantastic. And, of course, there’s always challah French Toast! Shabbat Shalom.
yes, it is not as fluffy and fresh and light as it is when just out of the oven BUT I do, do it all the time.
Can this kugel be made in advance and frozen?
soup mix/soup powder – like this: http://amzn.to/1roJaaO
matzal meal… (what are you trying to avoid?)
What is “Consommé Mix”?
Can you substitute anything for the breadcrumbs?
Barbara – truth is you can use ANY challah or leftover bread with the crusts cut off. I even use hamburger buns, any kind of challah, even leftover rye bread 🙂
Many stores offer water challah, or you can try this recipe http://www.joyofkosher.com/recipes/sara-maybergs-water-challah/
What is water challah. I make my own challah often, but have never seen a recipe without eggs. Where would I buy water challah?
You need to add the word “baking” on your list of ingred. for baking powder. Also, your video said to bake it at 400 degrees, which is better? And, the print is very small when I print from this site, is there any way you can make it bogger and easier to read? Thanks.