Against the rise in bread prices, 5 tricks to reuse it (and not throw away even a crumb)

What can we do if we have some bread left over? Here are some tricks to avoid wasting a humble yet very precious food

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

Il bread it is a food that is never lacking on our tables, but unfortunately it is also one of those that is most wasted and thrown away, as too soon it starts to dry up and no longer be fragrant. It must be said that even bread has undergone price increases, due to the lower production of wheat and the increase in energy costs: just think that prices are on average 3,9% higher than last year - which translates into an annual cost of about 35 euros more for an average family. For this reason we want to give you some advice to not waste it and save money. So here are five habits we can implement to reuse old bread:

(Read also: Bread weighed in gold: "it can cost up to 6 euros per kg")

1. Meatballs Bread. If there is a lot of leftover bread left in the basket, why not use it to create a vegan and very tasty second course? The crumb, in fact, can be reused and become dough for vegetable meatballs, which we will enrich with seasonal vegetables. HERE you can find our recipe.
2. Thickener in doughs. Old bread can be an excellent ally in the kitchen, as it allows us to give more body to the doughs of meatballs and burgers (including meat), but also to fillings: for example, we can use crumbs to stuff the belly with aubergines or peppers which we will then pass in the oven, or in the stuffed squid stuffing. The tasting result will be excellent and we will have limited the waste of this precious food. HERE you will find all our recipes for using stale bread.
3. Rusks. As an alternative to rusks bought at the supermarket, we can create excellent and healthy rusks for our breakfast with the leftover bread of the day before: just cut a few slices not too thick from biscuit for a few minutes in the oven at 200 ° C - before enrich them with jam or hazelnut cream (to which we can also add coarsely chopped fruit or oil seeds). If we are too lazy, we prepare the slices of bread already cut inside the pan the night before and put this ready in the oven: in this way, as soon as we wake up, we will only have to turn on the oven and enjoy our fragrant rusks.
4. Breadcrumbs. Why spend money to buy breadcrumbs if we can make it at home by recovering the leftover bread? We accumulate the slices of stale bread (sandwiches are fine too) in a salad bowl covered with a cloth. After a few days, when they are very dry and dehydrated, let's pass them in the oven at maximum power for a few minutes, in order to be sure that all the water present has been dried (this step is very important and will avoid the formation of mold in our breadcrumbs) . Now we just have to finely chop the dried slices: we can use a kitchen mixer or do it by hand with the help of a grater; then we keep the powder obtained in a clean and dry glass jar.
5. Croutons and bruschetta. It is perhaps the simplest way to reuse stale bread. To make delicious bruschetta, just cut the bread into slices and toast it for a few minutes in a hot oven. We then use a clove of garlic to flavor one side of the bruschetta, rubbing it lightly against the surface of the bread, and we give space to creativity: cherry tomatoes and oregano, pickles, baked pumpkin, fried aubergines ... there are a thousand condiments with which we can enrich our bruschetta - and the appetizer is served. We can also decide to cut the slices of bread into cubes before toasting them in the oven: in this way we will obtain excellent croutons to enrich soups, velvety and typical winter soups.

We do not recommend recycling old bread as bird, duck and duck feed: it is a noble gesture done with the best of intentions, but which seriously damages the animals. The digestive system of the birds, in fact, would end up being burdened by the excess of carbohydrates of the bread, which at the same time does not provide useful nutrients. If we want to feed the birds, we can leave a saucer for them on our balcony with barley or wheat, oats but also cabbage, chard and lettuce.

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