Don’t bin bread!

We all know that we should be doing more to cut down on food waste. Apart from the fact it’s well, wasteful, throwing away food has an impact on our pockets and the environment. Buying less and planning more is a good start, but we also need to make sure we eat the food we buy before it goes bad and ends up in the bin.

Bread is one of the most wasted foods in the UK. This article from the Guardian highlights the amount of binned bread. If you’re a family that doesn’t eat crusts, then you could be throwing away the equivalent of a whole loaf of bread each month.

Without even thinking about it, we’re binning perfectly good bread. I personally quite like a granary crust toasted and then topped with a good slather of peanut butter, but I hold my hands up and say that quite often the ends of loaves end up in the bin, especially those not-quite-slice bits that are barely the outer husk of a loaf.

It’s a bit past best, what can we do?

Over the last few months, I’ve been collecting some stale crusts and slices and popping them in my freezer. Then grabbing out the odd bit as I need it to grate to make bread crumbs or fry off to make croutons. I ended up with quite a lot, so had to do something with it. Hello, bread pudding!

Bread Pudding

It’s made by soaking ripped up chunks of stale bread in eggs and milk. Once it’s soaked and the bread is soft, you can beat in some spices – nutmeg, cinnamon or mixed spice – and add sugar and dried fruit.  I’ve used sultanas and then I got my hands in to squelch up the bread. At this point, I fished out a couple of bits of sturdy sourdough crust that were refusing to cooperate and were rock solid.

The pudding is baked on a low heat for a good while. There are loads of recipes for bread pudding including this one from BBC Good Food, but I don’t think precision is necessary for this. It’s basically enough liquid to soften everything, and enough sugar, spice and fruit to make it taste nice.

There are tonnes of things we can do with leftover bread.

It doesn’t have to be bread pudding. I’ve compiled a list of things you can do with less-than-fresh bread.

Day-old bread

•  give it a quick refresh, or
• toasted sandwiches
• and great for toast

It’s not as fresh as it was, but still enjoyable. If it’s an uncut loaf or individual rolls, you can refresh that freshness by spritzing the bread with water and popping it back in the oven for a few minutes to bring it back to life. If you’ve got sliced bread that is a little less than best, then get the sandwich toaster out.

Staling it out

• eggy bread or pain perdu
• gypsy tart
• bread & butter pudding

Not exactly what you’d call hard, but there’s a certain edge to it. This slightly stale bread can be reincarnated as eggy bread, gypsy toast or pain perdu. Would also make a light bread & butter pudding (not to be confused with bread pudding).

Hardened off

• breadcrumbs
• croutons
• panzanella

We’re in survival territory here. Bread that is hard but adaptable. Grate or blitz to make breadcrumbs for a crunchy topping to mac n’ cheese; chop up and fry or bake to make croutons for salads or soups; tear up and add to tomato salad to make panzanella; or fry off some herby breadcrumbs to make pangrattato to sprinkle on top of pasta dishes.

Too hard to handle

• B is for bin 

This is badass bread beyond the point of no return and it’ll take your teeth out if you’re not careful.  I’m sorry to say that no amount of adding ingredients will soften it down or crisp it back up.