7+ Ways to Use Leftover Bread

Whether you are a bread lover or not, leftover bread is a part of our dining cycle. Let us say becoming a day-old bread is any fresh bread’s life journey as they are either consumed immediately or they start to grow… I mean produce growth, which means they are about to say goodbye. Before they do, there are a lot of ways we can consider to lengthen their lives. And yes, ultimately be digested, well, yeah, eaten.

Bread.
Bread
Bread.

Some slices of bread become stone-hard if not devoured within the day of purchase or during the first two hours after baking. The notorious ones are those from our local bakeries. Pandesal in my home country, the Philippines, is one; pita bread or khobz in Saudi Arabia is another. They just loved that immediate attention or else, they begin to think about moving to the other side of their life. Such brats, aren’t they? But I can tell you, whatever type of bread you have, there are always ways to use them before they start walking away from your pantry.

There are several ways we can deal with leftover bread to beat them from being categorized as stale too soon. They can be:

• Table of Contents

  Toggle

  Homemade croutons from leftover pita bread

  

  Simply dice day-old bread and sprinkle it with butter or virgin olive oil, put in the hot oven for a few minutes or till they are a bit crisp and golden, and there you have them! I do this almost always, in fact, whenever I see leftover slices of bread, I immediately imagine their next life: homemade croutons and salad. Pita bread croutons are used mostly in Fattoush salads in the Middle East. I use this in all salads! No one complains. Pita croutons are good as crispy snacks as well. We call them pita chips or khobz chips at home. My son eats them as if eating tortilla chips with spread cheese. Any melty cheese would be good for this. Sour cream would also be a good idea.

• French toast from leftover bread

  

  Beat eggs and fresh milk and dip both sides of sliced white bread, then lightly fry them with plenty of butter. Serve with (pancake) syrup for breakfast. You can add cinnamon with the egg-milk mixture for a tastier French toast.

•  Biscocho from leftover breadThis is the Spanish term for biscuit. Halve leftover sliced white bread and spread with butter or margarine, sprinkle with granulated sugar, and then bake them for 10-12 minutes at 300 degrees centigrade. I have yet to try this with brown sugar, but I thought that I could, as I write for your now. Biscocho pieces are good with coffee or tea. This is also a comfort food for most.

• Breadcrumbs

  Bake slices of bread till crisp, then pound or grind them to your desired coarseness, and keep them for later use as breadcrumbs. Another option is to rub one crisp white bread against another and you will make fine breadcrumbs in the process. That, of course, requires time, and a bit of patience. Another option is to run them briefly, in batches, in a food processor.

• Zaatar bites

  

  Cut pita bread into quarters, sprinkle them with olive oil and zaatar (dried oregano), and bake them for a few minutes over medium heat. Eat these crusty bread as is, or with coffee, tea, or any of your favorite cold drinks.

• Fatteh

  
  The same croutons from diced pita bread can be used in this delicious dish.

• Thareed

  

  Although fresh khobz is recommended for this dish, day-old ones do not hurt because the sauce from the dish will soften the bread and the taste remains the same.

• There are more ideas, of course. Like, using them for French onion soup, savoury bread pudding, or simply bake them for a few minutes on a baking sheet or a shallow baking dish and enjoy them with a squeeze of maple syrup (yummy). More ideas: give them a generous drizzle of parmesan garlic, garlic powder, mozzarella cheese, then bake! The ideas are endless! There is definitely a delicious recipe waiting for your day-old bread.

Did I tell you that I also am a quilter? I love scrap fabrics, I collect them, and I quilt from scraps. Saving left-overs – bread or otherwise, food or not – I just love giving life to what others might see as useless. It’s rejuvenating –both for me and for my scraps or leftovers.

Magida