We've been baking our own weekly bread for a while now, which has been extremely satisfying. But on the downside, we've discovered that our homemade bread stales a lot quicker than store-bought bread. This is to be expected, but still leaves us with the odd third of a loaf now and then. Here are five ways we use up those stale bits!
If you have more than just a few slices left when the bread starts to go stale, you can usually freshen it up for at least one more meal. Just spritz the surface of the loaf with a little water and bake it in a 350° oven for 5-10 minutes.
The loaf will stale much more quickly after this, so use up the remainder in one of these ways:
1. Thicken Soups - We love thick hearty soups when the weather is cold, and throwing in a few chunks of stale bread is a great way to add body to a brothy soup. We can also puree soups with bread to make them creamy without using actual cream!
2. Breadcrumbs - We use breadcrumbs for everything from making a crunchy topping on casseroles to breading chicken before frying. It's easy to make our own and nice to have a few cups ready when we need them.
3. Croutons - In our opinion, crunchy croutons are what turn a simple dinner salad into something we can't wait to dive into! Croutons are also a great garnish for a cup of soup.
4. French Toast and Bread Pudding - Stale bread is the perfect vehicle for custardy, eggy puddings. Make French toast or layer slices of the old bread in a casserole dish to make bread pudding (here are some recipes).
5. Meatloaf and Meatballs - Stale bread is our preferred binder for any kind of shaped meat dishes. In meatloaf or meatballs, the bread absorbs any extra liquid and holds the meat together through cooking.
Bread also freezes extremely well. If we don't have an immediate need for the stale bread, we cut it into slices or cubes (or leave it whole if we're lazy), package it in a freezer container, and throw it in the freezer. It thaws in a few minutes and we can use it however we want!
What do you do with leftover bread?
Related: Five Ways to Use a Serrated Knife Other Than Cutting Bread
(Image: Flickr member foooooey licensed under Creative Commons)
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The bread salad from Zuni Cafe! It's almost better than the roast chicken.
And of course panzanella.
Savory Corn Bread Pudding, from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. But basically, make a bread pudding egg mixture without sugar and add in things instead like chopped cilantro, corn, chiles. Great as a side dish, and perfect for getting rid of extra veggies, ends of cheese, other things you have in fridge too.
I actually find that my home made bread goes moldy before it goes stale. I've tried keeping it wrapped in just plastic, in just foil, in both... I don't have a particularly humid kitchen so I have no idea how to keep my homemade bread from molding so fast. If I leave it unwrapped it goes stale in a day. HELP!
Don't forget the old trick of adding a crust of bread to your brown sugar container to keep the brown sugar soft. It totally works!
- Amelia of Gradually Greener
When I do my weekly baking, EVERYTHING that we don't eat immediately goes straight into the freezer. It all gets eaten out of the freezer by the end of the week, so it doesn't go stale or moldy.
Thought this was pretty common bread bakers' practice--is there a reason I shouldn't be doing this?
The Green Cat
Freeze it. Bread freezes extremely well. If I make enough bread to last a couple of days I make sure it's nice and cool and keep it on the counter in a large ziplock bag. If I make more than a couple of days worth I freeze the rest in freezer bags.
If you're going to be using it as slices you can slice it first and just take out the number of slices you need. It thaws very quickly that way. If freezing a whole loaf and you can just take it out an hour or two before you want to use it and warm it on the counter. Or if time is a factor, 10 minutes or so in the oven at a low temp does the trick.
The Panade posted last year!
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/quick/dinner-quick-tomato-and-white-bean-panade-069332
It's a great cool weather meal!
Yep, freeze it. Growing up, we froze all bread, store-bought and homemade. Although my boyfriend objects to frozen bread, I prefer it. He says he doesn't like that it always requires toasting, but you can just toast it lightly.
BREAD PUDDING!
Freezer! Or, if I forget to do that: breadcrumbs, croutons or the like. Bread rarely goes to waste in my house. That is sacreligious in my book.
Freezer, freezer, freezer. I haven't had one bit of stale bread all year.
But when all else fails, throw it in soup.
ABreadADay.com
Freeze it.
I like french toast. A lot of times I'll buy fresh bread and won't get to eat it in time, so I'll cut it in slices and freeze it -- and then take out a slice here and there as a compliment to a soup or salad.
I usually leave my home baked bread in a cotton bread bag. It won't last a week, that's for sure, but it will last 3 days. It won't mold but after 3-4 days, it will become hard.
One way I use my going-on-stale-bread that reminds me of growing up : put brown sugar or maple sugar on a slice and cover with cream :-) Yep, not healthy but oh so good.
We store our homemade bread wrapped in a kitchen towel. It works so much better than plastic or foil. We freeze whatever we aren't going to eat immediately. I make French toast on weekends with leftover bread. And the brown sugar trick is a great one - I especially like that trick because I don't have a microwave, so hard brown sugar is something I try to prevent.
What I do with leftover bread depends on what type of bread it is too.
Panzanella, ribollita, bread pudding, strata, stuffing/dressing, french toast, bread crumbs, stuffed pumpkin, brown bread ice cream (buttery toasted bread crumbs folded into a good vanilla ice cream)...we love making and eating it all in my household.
Stuffing! This is my favorite thing to do with stale bread and leftover veggies at the end of the week. So simple and satisfying. Yum.
Brown sugar should be kept in an air-tight container in the freezer. If you pull it out as you're starting to bake, by the time you need to measure out brown sugar it'll be thawed and fresh. It's so easy since it thaws so quickly (less than five minutes) and keeps forever this way.
I do freeze my extra loaves. My problem is I'm only one person so I rarely go through an entire (small) loaf in a week. I guess maybe I should try freezing them in half loaves.
My two favourites are http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/spiced-bread-pudding-with-brandy-cream.html Bread Pudding (a cake type affair really good eaten hot or cold) and http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/type-of-dish/sweet/rich-bread-and-butter-pudding.html Bread and Butter pudding - eaten hot it has a crunchy top, and custardy base - switch out the dried fruit and spices for chocolate and some other type of fruit(pears, rasberries etc), and add in a slug of baileys to the custard mix to make a really great pudding!
I'm lucky if a loaf of bread lasts three days, what with the little brother having hit 15 and turning into a giant black hole. Between him and our exchange student, leftovers and stale bread are a thing of the past. I have to make at least two loaves if I want toast for more than two breakfasts in a row.