I know I’m not the only mom who opens up a lunch bag to find the crust off a sandwich has not been eaten. When reading the statistic that 27% of food in America gets thrown away – I wonder how much of that is bread crusts and ends? What if we were to use 100% of a loaf of bread? We’d be stretching our food dollars and eliminating quite a bit of food waste.
Here are three tips on how you can make sure your family is consuming 100% of a loaf of bread.
Tip #1: Place a bread end in a tight-sealing jar with your brown sugar to keep it fresh.
This is a simple enough solution to keeping your brown sugar from being wasted. Instead of throwing out a bread end, keep it in your brown sugar. The moisture from just one bread end helps to keep brown sugar from hardening.
Tip #2: Use bread crusts to make homemade croutons.
I really do encourage my girls to eat ALL their sandwich. But if I know I am making a salad or soup that night, I usually send them to school with a sandwich with the crusts cut off. I then use them in this amazing recipe for Homemade Croutons. Try to make this recipe right before you need the croutons. Otherwise, you might just end up eating them all before you can use them!
Ingredients
- Crust from 4 slices bread
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1/2 teaspoon rosemary
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400.
- Cut bread crusts into 1 inch pieces.
- Put butter on rimmed baking sheet. Place in oven and melt butter (approximately 3 minutes).
- Remove sheet from oven. Toss bread, garlic salt and rosemary with the melted butter.
- Place sheet back in oven. Bake 5 minutes. Toss croutons. Bake an additional 5 minutes.
These croutons are seriously yummy!
Tip #3: Take your bread ends and turn them into bread crumbs to be used in a variety of recipes.
Paying for bread crumbs is crazy! They are so easy to make at home and require very little effort on your part.
Ingredients
- 4 bread ends
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Place bread ends on a flat cookie sheet. Bake bread ends for two hours or until dry and hard.
- In the bowl of a food processor, add dried bread ends and all seasonings. Process until finely ground.
- Store in a tight sealing jar for one month. Can be stored in the freezer for six months.
You can adjust the seasonings in this recipe to suit your family’s taste. Use the breadcrumbs to bread chicken or sprinkle them over casseroles. You’ll wonder why you ever threw out a bread end!
Excellent ideas! I’ve done the bread crumb idea and wow … they taste so much better than the bland crumbs from the store … and so much more economical! And the tip about the brown sugar … brilliant … there’s nothing worse than going for brown sugar only to find that it’s hard as rock! Thanks so much for sharing this tips … and for encouraging us not to waste food!
All great ideas, Andrea!!!
Thank you!
They do taste so much better, don’t they. Plus, once you start making them – you can’t believe someone would pay $ for them! And I have to credit my mom with the brown sugar tip.
Thanks for commenting!
Thanks for the recipes! I made the croutons yesterday! I didn’t have any rosemary, so I just use the garlic salt…super yummy!!!
So glad you liked them Karla! It takes everything I have not to eat them as quick as I make them!
Andrea