Salvage Bread: Make your own breadcrumbs

Bread goes stale. Fact. Breadcrumbs bought from a supermarket could set you back $1.80-$6.00 depending how fancy. Fact.

You get where I’m going with this, don’t you!  Use your loaf, save some dollars and have the convenience of breadcrumbs in your pantry or freezer at no extra cost. Love Food Hate Waste.

You may have come to the last few slices that, after a wary prod, feel decisively stale. You may have been collecting crusts religiously cut off school sandwiches for days. What do you do?

Depending on the volume you may choose to whip up a batch of fresh or dried breadcrumbs on the spot OR stash your stale collection in an air-tight container in the freezer until you’ve collected an amount worthy of a breadcrumb jamboree!

While it takes only a little effort to make breadcrumbs, you may as well make a large batch and be happy in the knowledge you’re pantry (or freezer) can give back an ample supply for a while to come.

• Be sensible. If the bread is moldy, unfortunately the loaf will be riddled with mold spores — you’ve missed your chance to salvage. Consider composting!
• Don’t keep bread that has been half-eaten on a plate (literally) as the enzymes from saliva will decay food in an irreversible manner.
• Be on your toes. Be a food conscious consumer.

Making Fresh Breadcrumbs

Pop crusts and left over bread into a food processor or blender and grind them down to a fine crumb. This is absolutely fine with slightly stale bread (this is still considered ‘fresh’).  Some recipes specify fresh breadcrumbs but ‘fresh from frozen’ works perfectly well (ie: crumb then store in the *freezer until you need them) which is a great way to keep the longevity.

*Freezing breadcrumbs won’t cause them to freeze solid in a ball of ice. As they are finely crumbed it will be ‘free flow’ meaning you’ll be able to scoop out a handful, or measured cup whenever you need it. When grinding the bread to a fine crumb a tip is not to overfull the food processor otherwise the blades will clam up. Small batches may work well for you. 4 slices of bread will yield approximately one cup of crumb.

Either use fresh breadcrumbs plain, or flavour the breadcrumb. For the latter simply put all ingredients into a food processor together.  Use immediately or freeze in a sealed bag. For example:

• 1/2 loaf of white bread
• 1 cup fresh parsley
• 1 cup fresh basil
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp lemon zest

At the end of the day your tastebuds will tell you if you need extra salt, more crumb, less herbs etc.

Making Dried (Baked) Breadcrumbs

This is the type you’re likely to buy at the supermarket!  Simply leave stale bread out on the kitchen bench uncovered to crisp up even further, or turn your oven to low (say 100ºC fan bake). Spread out your fresh bread chunks on a single layer on baking paper and allow to dehydrate until crisp (it may only take 10-20 minutes). Or, you may wish to toast the bread then process into crumb afterwards. It’s OK if the crumb turns golden, it’s OK if it doesn’t, but you will feel the texture change.

Herbed Breadcrumb

Ingredients

• 1/2 loaf of stale white bread
• 2 onion skins (just the outer brown layers)
• fresh rosemary
• fresh sage
• fresh parsley
• 1 tsp smoked chilli flakes
• 1 tsp Himalayan salt
• cracked pepper
• olive oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 100ºC fan bake.
2. Tear up stale loaf into small chunks. Lay on an oven tray lined with baking paper.
3. Peel away the outer skin of two onions, just taking the brown skin and lay over bread.  Layer generous amounts of fresh herbs, sprinkle with chilli flakes, salt and pepper.
4. Finally drizzle olive oil over everything. Bake until crisp (approx 10-30 minutes).
5. For any ‘woody’ herbs such as rosemary, strip off the dried leaves and discard the stalk after baking.
6. Put all ingredients in the food processor in small batches and blitz until it resembles a fine crumb.
7. Keep in airtight container, or freeze.

If you don’t have a food processor, chop finely with a knife or use a grater (or toast, put in a plastic bag, and bash with a rolling pin). The general result will be crumb. Job done.

It is important you allow the crumb to cool before storing in an air tight container otherwise steam or moisture will encourage mold. Generally, dried breadcrumbs could expect to last approximately one month on the pantry shelf, or longer frozen.

As with fresh breadcrumbs, there are many ways to jazz up stale old bread. Here’s just a few suggestions. Try adding a concoction of the following to taste:

• fresh or dried herbs: oregano, basil, parsley, thyme, sage
• spices: smoked paprika, turmeric, chilli powder
• onion or garlic powder (or onion or garlic salt)
• freshly ground black pepper, or lemon pepper

What else will crumb?

Don’t limit yourself to the traditional loaf. Naan bread, garlic bread, wraps, bagels and even stale crackers will crumb. Treat them the same way – freeze ‘fresh’ or bake until dehydrated.

What do you use breadcrumbs for?

Maybe we don’t use breadcrumbs so much because we just don’t think to use them, or we weren’t paying enough attention for when our grandmothers cooked a meal. Breadcrumbs can be the magic ingredient in so many dishes: to crumb fish, coat Potato & Tuna croquettes, stirred through to thicken soup (makes it nice and creamy), sprinkled on top of baked scalloped potatoes, macaroni cheese, gratins, vegetable bakes or casseroles, or as stuffing mix.

If you are ‘going in’ with creative flair and a grin, without a recipe to guide you, when crumbing fish best to:  debone and clean fillets (pat dry with a paper towel), then dip in flour, dip in beaten egg, then dip in crumb. These layers help bind everything together so the crumb sticks. A good idea is to set up a dipping station in your kitchen using bowls and plates set up ready.

Check out my other bread saving ideas.