7 Deliciously Indulgent Ways To Use Your Stale Bread

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You know when you make a trip to the supermarket and a really nice loaf of sourdough or French bread catches your eye? You buy it, of course, but then you forget about it a day later. And before you know it, you have a perfectly good loaf that’s gone stale.

But don’t throw it out (unless it’s legit moldy) because there are plenty of tasty ways to repurpose your stale bread. If you can eliminate some food waste in your life and eat well at the same time, it’s certainly worth a try, right?

1. Bread Pudding

The great thing about making bread pudding is that the recipe often calls for stale bread. Without even trying, you saved yourself a step! Here’s a recipe for bread pudding with vanilla, brandy, lemon zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and day-old brioche bread. It’ll bring your stale brioche back to life in the sweetest way possible.

2. French Toast

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Stale bread is better for making French toast than fresh bread. Fresh bread leaves you with soggy slices, and no one wants that. If you have a sturdy, stale loaf, it’ll hold up to the egg and milk custard mixture that you’ll need to soak the bread in ahead of time. Here’s an awesome French toast recipe from Martha Stewart that calls for day-old bread.

3. Breadcrumbs

Instead of tossing your stale bread, make breadcrumbs out of it and use those for all kinds of recipes. Here’s an easy way to make your own breadcrumbs. All you’ll need is an oven and a baking sheet. Once the bread gets completely dried out, it’ll be easy to crumble down to the size you want.

It’ll be easier if you have a food processor, but you can also smash the bread into tiny pieces with a rolling pin. Now, you can use these homemade breadcrumbs for breading cutlets, holding crab cakes or meatballs together, or adding some extra texture to your baked mac ‘n’ cheese.

4. Fondue

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Fresh bread will definitely disappear in a pot of melted cheese, so this is when your stale bread will come to the rescue. Pick out a dense loaf and let it sit for a day or two before you use it for a cheese fondue. Here’s everything you could want to know when it comes to making cheese fondue. To make sure that your bread doesn’t fall apart in the cheese, you can always bake it beforehand.

5. Stuffing

You don’t have to wait for Thanksgiving to come around to make stuffing. And if you watched your older relatives cook it over the years, you’ve probably noticed that they bake the bread or toast it before combining it with the rest of the ingredients. Here’s how to improvise a simple stuffing on the fly with your leftover bread.

6. French Onion Soup

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French onion soup is one of the most comforting foods. It’s filling, hearty, cheesy and flavorful, and it has all of the textures you could want in one bite. This recipe for a rich and simple French onion soup is a perfect way to use up stale bread. Once the bread absorbs all of the onion and cheesy goodness inside, you’ll never know it went stale.

7. Bruschetta

If you’re having some people over for drinks and you want to make an easy appetizer, your stale bread will come in handy for making bruschetta. Slice your baguette into 1/4-inch thick rounds, brush the slices with olive oil, bake them, top them with a mixture of tomatoes, onions, garlic, basil, olive oil, salt and pepper, and serve. It doesn’t get more simple than that.