Follow These Ideas and Recipes to Reinvigorate Your Stale Sourdough Bread

If your bread has gone stale, do not despair. There are several ways to prevail and avoid generating unnecessary food waste with a little bit of creativity. In fact, so long as the bread isn't teeming with mold, you may even be able to restore your stale sourdough bread to the point where it looks like a brand new loaf.

Globally, an egregious amount of food waste is produced each year, so any measures taken to reduce this troubling trend are crucial.

If you have sourdough bread that has been left out for a little too long on your counter, you will want to keep reading. Below, we share some of the best ideas that TikTok users have come up with to save your stale sourdough bread and avoid having to throw it in the trash.

As self-proclaimed sourdough addict Sarah (username @crustycravingsbyh) notes in one TikTok video, you can place your sourdough bread in an oven for 10 to 15 minutes at 350 degrees to make delicious breadcrumbs.

Sarah notes that she finishes the bread in a blender or food processor to get the oven-baked pieces into the consistency of breadcrumbs before putting the finely ground pieces back into the oven at 350 degrees for another 10 to 15 minutes.

As Amanda of Heartbeet Kitchen notes in the video above, her Golden Sourdough French Toast recipe repurposes stale sourdough for a delectable breakfast staple. Although Amanda's recipe is not vegan, there are plenty of easy vegan swaps that can be made, from vegan egg substitutes and environmentally friendly plant-based milk to the perfect vegan butter to keep the french toast moist.

If breadcrumbs and French toast aren't quite your thing, there are still other ways to make good use of your stale sourdough bread and complement future meals.

As TikTok user @MuscleMommaSourdough notes in the video above, you can also take stale sourdough bread and make croutons with a little bit of olive oil, your favorite seasoning, and an air fryer. (Just make sure the air fryer you buy is PFAS-free and contains as few hazardous forever chemicals as possible.)

As Liv of Liv Vegan Strong shares in her Air Fryer Croutons recipe, the ingredients are highly customizable. With some extra virgin olive oil, herbs like oregano, parsley, and rosemary, as well as seasonings such as pepper, salt, garlic powder, and onion powder, you can concoct amazing vegan croutons in just a few short steps.

For some extra flavor, Liv mentions that you can grate some vegan parmesan cheese onto the croutons, as well.

As TikTok user @therealsourdoughmom mentions in the video above, simply dousing the entire sourdough loaf — or portions of the loaf — under running water isn't necessarily advised, though many TikTok users seem to recommend it for the clicks. After strategically dunking parts of your loaf in water, cover any cut sides in tin foil and put the bread in the oven at 375 degrees for about 10 minutes.

As @okaycoolgigi found out, though: you should use oven mitts to retrieve your bread from a hot oven.