Welcome to Jesse Fixes Dinner, a series in which food editor Jesse Szewczyk shares his best tricks for effortless weeknight cooking.
As many people are reliving the ’90s and 2000s via their closets (black chokers, bucket hats, scrunchies), I’m turning to my pantry instead. Of course there are some ingredients I’m happy to leave in decades past—sun-dried tomatoes, delete my number—but there are others that I’m looking at with fresh eyes. Like those store-bought tubes of polenta.
Much like roasting or pan-frying shelf-stable gnocchi (our preferred method versus boiling), if you rethink how to prepare precooked polenta, it can actually be pretty darn good. Instead of heating it into a mushy porridge, like we did in the aughts, I’ve been slicing and pan-frying it to make crispy, crouton-like rounds. Throw them into a simple salad and you can take polenta tubes from 2004 to 2024 in no time.
To make polenta croutons from scratch, you’d have to cook the polenta (a low-and-slow process that takes up to 40 minutes), cool it for at least two hours to solidify, then cut and pan-fry. With a shelf-stable tube—that keeps in the pantry for months—you can skip right to the last step. I like to use a nonstick skillet for easy cooking and, to up the ante, sprinkle some grated parm on both sides of the slices. In the pan, the cheese transforms into a frico-like coating for a crispy-salty crust. Suddenly, store-bought polenta is cool again.
Once the polenta croutons are fried, they can dress up countless meals. I like to make a quick caprese: juicy tomatoes, torn mozzarella, a bushel of fresh basil, and plenty of balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The crispy polenta discs add lots of crunchy-creamy texture, and they bulk up the light salad into something hearty enough to be a complete meal.
Beyond caprese, you can nestle polenta crisps into any salad your heart desires. Think of them as a corny (and gluten-free) crouton than can level up any bowl of greens. Try adding them to a classic Caesar salad in place of bread or throwing them into the simplest of kale salads. And for those embracing the aughts revival, go full retro and use them as a crostini-like base, topped with whatever your heart desires: shrimp, pork, or even sun-dried tomatoes.
