The Easiest Way to Keep Bread Soft — No Fancy Tools Needed

Whether you prefer getting bread fully sliced from the grocery store, picking it up fresh from a bakery, or even making bread at home, one thing everyone can agree on is that stale, stiff bread is a bummer. That’s why we were excited to discover a new method to help keep the cut end of a loaf of bread from drying out.

Food influencer Joy Huang of @joyosity recently shared the tip on Instagram in a post about the Australian and New Zealand treat fairy bread. If you find yourself in the market for making fairy bread at home or simply have a leftover butter wrapper, don’t throw it out! Try this trick that Huang uses to keep the end of her bread loaves soft and moist: Use the butter wrapper from a soft stick of butter to completely cover the exposed end of the loaf of bread.

“If you let a stick of butter sit at room temperature and then remove the wrapper,” Huang says. “There’s usually enough butter left on the wrapper to stick to the bread and keep it from drying out.”

For the trick to work, it’s important that you use a wrapper from a stick of butter that was allowed to soften at room temperature rather than one that was just pulled out of the refrigerator — the wrapper from softened butter will have more butter clinging to it than a refrigerated one.

We love this simple but smart tip for keeping loaves of bread soft and ready to slice and enjoy. While this trick will keep bread soft for several days, if you want to store it longer remember that you can always freeze it — here’s how to freeze and thaw bread properly.