Stop Throwing Your Stale Bread Away- Cookbook Author Shares Easy Hack to Revive It Back to Life

When given a choice, no one likes to waste bread. However, mishaps do happen. That lonely slice of bread that can’t be used because all your sandwiches are made and you’d need another slice to make an extra sandwich; or that unlucky slice that is left inside the packet when there are only three slices and you use up two of them for bread and butter. These loners are abandoned inside fridges where they slowly lose their crispness day by day. Their delicious bakery aroma wisps away in the air, and eventually, these breads are jettisoned inside the kitchen bin. No one, after all, wants to eat bread when it is too soggy. Thankfully, the famed cookbook author Ramona Cruz Peters (@fabeveryday), has a hack to resolve this heartbreaking dilemma and save the lone bread’s life.

“Don’t throw stale bread away,” she urged her followers. “Stick the bread under a running faucet to wet the outside and don’t be shy about it,” Ramona explained while showing the footage of washing a bread loaf under tap water. Once the loaf was completely soaked in water, the next step, she suggested, was to press the bread on a baking sheet and keep it in the oven. Heat the loaf at 300 degrees Fahrenheit for about 6 to 10 minutes, till the bread is dry, and crusty on the outside. She took out the bread from the oven and showed how it had regained its springy and bakery-fresh texture.

In the comments section, people chimed in and said the hack is life-changing, brilliant, and smart. “I love that this hack helps reduce food waste,” commented @xo.rachelpitzel. @mommas_gang said the hack surprised her. @themichellemarkey added that she already employs this trick and it always works, to which Ramona replied, “it works like a charm.”

Ramona is not the first person to share this clever kitchen hack. A top chef and TikToker named Tristan Welch also shared the same method for reviving bread that has gone stale. Justin Chapple also explained the same method in a YouTube video by Food & Wine. According to Bon Appetit,  food director Carla Music has applied this trick with a totally saturated loaf of bread to great success. Alternatively, America’s Test Kitchen suggests wrapping the stale bread loaf in an aluminum foil and heating it in an oven. According to The Kitchn, another method is “to microwave the bread wrapped in a damp paper towel and then heat it in the toaster.”

The Guardian reported that almost 900,000 tonnes of stale bread is wasted each year or about 24 million slices every day. In terms of calories, this amount is equivalent to the calories over 26 million people need to quell their hungry bellies. On the other hand, there are companies like Toast Ale, that makes beer out of stale bread. So when the paradox of choice strikes and makes you wonder what to do with all that stale bread, just apply the above-mentioned hack and use the revived bread to make delicacies such as croutons, crostini, bread puddings, fatoush, sandwiches, and more! 

You can follow Ramona Cruz Peters (@fabeveryday) on Instagram for more interesting food and kitchen hacks!