This homemade French Toast recipe is easy to pull together with less than 10 ingredients – and it comes out so flavorful and fluffy.
Serve it with maple syrup, bacon and fresh fruit for a simple but special breakfast. This is the best kind of treat in the morning!
Recipe for homemade French Toast
French toast is one of my favorite brunch recipes. I’ll admit, I adore a good Strawberry French Toast Casserole as well… But a classic French toast? Definitely my number one choice.
- This recipe comes out soft, fluffy and flavorful: Just what French toast is supposed to be!
- French toast is versatile and you can serve it with sweet or with savory sides; but I actually prefer to serve it with both! Maple syrup and bacon or breakfast sausage are so great with it, add fresh fruit and you’re good to go!
- The recipe only needs a handful of ingredients and is quick to pull together. There’s really no magic behind a great French toast, just the right technique and a little bit of time.
Ingredients you’ll need
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!
Ingredient notes and substitutes
- Bread: I used thick slices of brioche bread. Texas toast or Challah are also great! You can use slices of French bread or sourdough as well, if that’s what you have. What matters most is that your bread is stale; if it’s fresh, you’ll need to dry it out by baking it at 300°F for 10-15 minutes.
- Milk: My favorite to use here is whole milk or 2% milk – they yield a rich, French toast without making it sickly/fatty. I have tried recipes using cream before, and it’s just too much of a good thing to me.
- Butter: I really love using butter to cook my French toast, it’s just extra-special. Feel free to use oil, it will yield a slightly different color/flavor but it’s still very delicious!
How to make French Toast
My French Toast is really very easy to make – there’s no fuss about this recipe:
- Whisk together eggs, cinnamon milk and butter; then gradually whisk in milk.
- Dredge each piece of bread through this egg mixture (do this right before placing it on the griddle! If you dredge your bread and then leave it to sit on a plate before cooking it, it tends to come out soggy).
- Cook the dredged bread on a griddle or in a large nonstick skillet in melted butter, until golden brown on either side and nicely puffed up.
- Serve immediately, or keep warm in a single layer on a rack in the oven at 125°F until all of the French toast slices have been cooked.
Recipe tips
- Texture: The bread you’re using will make the biggest difference in the final texture of your French toast. Flimsy bread or soft bread that’s not stale easily turns out soggy.
- Soaking time: The time you leave the bread in the egg mixture heavily depends on the type of bread you’re using. A thicker, sturdier bread (like a sourdough) may be fine to stay in the egg mixture for up to 30 seconds per side; in fact, it might need it or else the middle could end up too dry! A very soft brioche on the other hand may only need 5-10 seconds in the egg mixture in total; else it will come out soggy. French toast is really simple to make, but you do need to pay close attention to which exact ingredients you are using and adjust your technique accordingly.
- Keeping warm: I do like French toast best served immediately, straight off the griddle. But you can keep the cooked slices warm in a 100°F oven if you need to – just know that depending on the type of bread you used, staleness and if you fully cooked the inside they may collapse a little.
French Toast FAQs
French toast ends up soggy if you soak it in the egg mixture too long; or if your milk to egg ratio isn’t right.
It’s also possible to use the wrong bread – very soft breads or thin slices, especially when they aren’t stale, can get soggy purely from dipping in the egg mixture and will stay dense and too moist even after cooking.
You also need to make sure you’re cooking your French toast long enough to fully cook the inside. This will yield a slice that is creamy yet fluffy on the inside and crisped up and browned on the outside.
If you only have fresh bread, you can dry out the slices in the oven. Place them on a wire rack and bake at 300°F for 10-15 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until dry.
You can make ahead the custard (egg/milk mixture) and keep it in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.
I love a good Brioche French toast – just make sure to slice it thickly, into around 1 inch thick slices.
But we do make French toast with many different kinds of breads in our family. I actually grew up with French toast used for its originally intended purpose: To avoid wasting old bread. My grandmother made French toast with any kind of stale bread she had collected over the course of a few days. So while yes, Brioche or Challah are the most luxurious… you can really use almost any type of stale bread.
Serving ideas
My family loves French toast for breakfast! But even though it has a lot going for it (protein from the eggs, carbs from the bread, fat from the butter, milk…), we all like a little something on the side to round out the meal.
I love a side of air fryer bacon and maple syrup – I’ll often stir some maple syrup into Greek Yogurt and use it as a dip for my French toast. It’s so tasty, almost like a healthy frosting!
We also enjoy fresh fruit with it, sometimes I’ll just serve some fresh berries, but my kids always ask for a fruit salad – a creamy berry fruit salad is delicious, but so is a classic fresh fruit salad!
PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram.
Printable recipe
Easy French Toast
Recipe details
Ingredients
Egg mixture
- 4 large eggs
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
Bread
- 10 (1-inch) slices brioche OR slick sliced Texas Toast OR white sandwich bread; stale
- 4 tablespoons butter
Instructions
- Whisk eggs, cinnamon, vanilla and salt in a shallow casserole dish until fully combined. Whisk in milk.
- Using one slice at a time, allow bread to soak in egg mixture for 10-30 seconds per side (see notes below for tips on soaking time!). Do not pre-soak, soaked slices need to cook immediately! (This yields French toast with custard-like, soft centers; for crisper French toast, quickly turn bread in egg mixture just 2-3 times).
- To cook, melt 1 teaspoon of butter per toast over medium heat in a large skillet or on a griddle. Cook French toast until golden on either side and puffy/cooked through, about 3-4 minutes per side. Do not overcrowd pan, cook 2-4 toasts at a time, depending on size. Repeat until all of the bread has been used.
- Serve immediately, or keep French toast warm in a 100°F oven until all of your bread is cooked.
Notes
- Butter: I really love using butter to cook my French toast, it’s just extra-special. Feel free to use oil, it will yield a slightly different color/flavor but it’s still very delicious!
- Milk: My favorite to use here is whole milk or 2% milk – they yield a rich, French toast without making it sickly/fatty. I have tried recipes using cream before, and it’s just too much of a good thing to me.
- Bread: I used thick slices of brioche bread. Texas toast or Challah are also great! You can use slices of French bread or sourdough as well, if that’s what you have.
- What matters most is that your bread is stale; if it’s fresh, you’ll need to dry it out by baking it at 300°F for 10-15 minutes.
- The bread you’re using will make the biggest difference in the final texture of your French toast. Flimsy bread or soft bread that’s not stale easily turns out soggy.
- Soaking time: The time you leave the bread in the egg mixture heavily depends on the type of bread you’re using. A thicker, sturdier bread (like a sourdough) may be fine to stay in the egg mixture for up to 30 seconds per side; in fact, it might need it or else the middle could end up too dry! A very soft, non-stale brioche on the other hand may only need 15-20 seconds in the egg mixture in total; else it will come out soggy. French toast is really simple to make, but you do need to pay close attention to which exact ingredients you are using and adjust your technique accordingly.
Julie says
This is the best French toast! I cut recipe in half and added maple syrup whip cream and strawberries
Nora says
I’m so glad, Julie!