What can I do with stale bread?
Six genuinely good uses for bread past its best, most of which are better with stale bread than fresh.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 20 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
Breadcrumbs, croutons, bread sauce, panzanella, French toast and bread pudding all work better with stale bread than fresh. Stale is dry, not spoiled — mouldy bread is a different matter and should be discarded.
Bread staling is starch recrystallising, which makes it dry and firm rather than inedible. Several traditional dishes exist specifically because bread goes stale, and they need that dryness to work.
What you'll need
- Stale bread
- Food processor (optional)
- Oven (optional)
Step by step
- Check it is stale rather than mouldy.Stale is dry and hard. Any visible mould means the whole loaf goes — mould threads run through soft bread invisibly.
- Make breadcrumbs and freeze them.Blitz in a processor and freeze in a bag. They keep for months and are used constantly — coatings, toppings, meatballs, stuffing.
- Make croutons.Cubes tossed in oil and salt, baked at 180°C for 10-15 minutes. Far better than shop-bought and they use up a lot of bread.
- Make French toast.Stale bread absorbs the egg mixture far better than fresh, which turns to mush. This is the one dish where stale is genuinely required.
- Make panzanella or fattoush.Bread salads built around stale bread soaking up dressing and tomato juice. Fresh bread disintegrates.
- Thicken a soup with it.Torn bread simmered into a soup thickens it and adds body. This is the basis of several traditional soups.
- Make a bread pudding or bread and butter pudding.Custard soaked into stale bread and baked. Both exist precisely because bread goes stale.
- Refresh a whole stale loaf.Run it briefly under water, then bake at 180°C for 10 minutes. It comes back remarkably well for a couple of hours.
Tips
- Freeze bread before it stales rather than after. Sliced bread toasts from frozen and a whole loaf thaws well.
- Keep a bag in the freezer for bread ends and heels. When it is full, blitz the lot into breadcrumbs.
- Never refrigerate bread. It stales several times faster at fridge temperature than at room temperature.
Common mistakes
- Using mouldy bread by cutting the mould off — Mould threads spread invisibly through soft bread. Unlike hard cheese, it cannot be trimmed away safely.
- Making French toast with fresh bread — It absorbs too much liquid and collapses. Stale bread holds its structure, which is why the dish exists.
- Keeping bread in the fridge — Refrigeration accelerates staling considerably. A bread bin or the freezer are the correct options.
Questions people ask
Can you use stale bread?
Yes, and several dishes work better with it — breadcrumbs, croutons, French toast, panzanella and bread pudding all need the dryness. Mouldy bread is different and should be discarded.
How do I freshen up stale bread?
Run the whole loaf briefly under water, then bake at 180°C for about ten minutes. It comes back convincingly for a couple of hours before staling again.