What to cook with stale bread: recipes and life hacks

We all know that bread is the head of everything. Since childhood, we've been drilled into the idea that bread should be respected and never thrown away.

At the same time, research shows that every person on earth throws away an average of 30 kilograms of bakery products in their lifetime. And all because no one tells us what to do with dried bread.

The FoodOboz editorial team considers this fact to be very unfair, so they tell you what you can make with stale bread edges, dried baguettes, and weathered pieces of toasted bread.

• Croutons. The easiest way to use stale bread. Prepare croutons to your own taste – plain, salty, and garlic, eat them as a snack, serve them as a beer snack, and add them to soups and salads.
• Breadcrumbs. Another easy way to recycle stale bread smartly. Simply grind the dried bread in a blender and add salt and spices to them if desired.

• French toast. A popular breakfast that can be prepared in just five minutes: dip the dried bread in a mixture of eggs beaten with milk and fry in butter.
• Panzanella. A Tuscan vegetable salad is popular in Italy in the summertime. The dish consists of slices of stale bread soaked in water and vinegar and then squeezed out, tomatoes, red onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, and basil.
• Homemade kvass. The dried bread crusts make a great refreshing drink.
• Pancakes. Soak diced white bread in milk, mix with eggs, flour, and grated apples, and then fry in a greased frying pan until golden brown.
• Charlotte. The dried bun pie is made according to a similar principle to regular charlotte, only with the addition of slices of bread soaked in milk. According to this scheme, in principle, you can cook any pies and casseroles with bread, where you can add fruits, berries, and vegetables.
• Soup. Yes, we're not kidding, you can even make soup from stale bread. What's more, this dish is found in Danish, Swedish, Estonian, and Finnish national cuisines. The breadcrumbs are soaked in hot boiled water with sugar or honey. When the base is ready, it is heated and fruit slices cooked in liquid sugar syrup and whipped cream lightly sweetened with powdered sugar are added. But Italian cuisine has a soup called Pappa al Pomodoro, which, unlike Northern European dishes, has vegetable ingredients – tomatoes combined with garlic and basil.