You plan meticulously and buy only as much bread as you think you need, but then there are some leftovers. A day later and it still tastes good, but people usually just grab a new loaf and thus goes the cycle of leftover bread. Especially in Turkey, I see whole loaves tossed out – granted cattle owners come and collect them, but that is not necessarily always the case. So here are some ways to use those leftovers!

First off:

How to store them

Let’s say after breakfast half of the loaf remains. One's first instinct is to put the bread in the fridge, but this cool place will dry the bread out faster. So avoid the fridge as long as it is not too hot (like the summers in Turkey). Closing them off with a plastic bag is of course a given in that case. But let’s say it has been more than a day and the bread is getting really tough. What then?

Bread crumbs

Panko flour, "galeta unu" or whatever you like to call them. Simply cut your bread into tiny pieces and leave them to hang out in a cloth tote bag. With time they will dry out almost completely. The next time you bake something and have removed your baked good and turned off the oven, toss the bread pieces in there to get the very last bit of the moisture out of them. Once they are hard as stone, use the kitchen appliance of your liking to make the stone-like bread really fine, and voilà, you've got yourself some breadcrumbs for crunchy delicacies without spending a dime. I was baffled when I saw that you could actually buy breadcrumbs in stores (I was a little kid after all). I was so used to making them at home!

Croutons

The big brother of bread crumbs and perfect for serving in a wide variety of soups and salads. Just cut the bread into cubes and toss them into the oven. Once dried out you can store them in the freezer. The cool thing is that when they are fresh out of the freezer they seem to stay crunchy a tad bit longer when tossed into a soup. But don’t stop there. I like to toss my croutons in a bit of oil and water that I have saturated with a wide variety of seasonings! From thyme to garlic powder, whatever you like. Just bake it in the oven again and store them for the long run in the freezer. But if you are going to consume them in the near future, an airtight container will do the trick as well. By the way, the shape does not matter, you can make sticks or even as slices. The cubes are just easier and faster to dry out. I love these as a snack as well.

Bread pizza

Now, this is truly nostalgic to me. Sometimes we’d even buy bread a couple of days beforehand just to make this. Just cut your bread to equally thick slices and prepare a tomato sauce of your liking, and spread a bit of that onto each slice. Then go ham on whatever topping you like! The smaller surface can make it tricky to put a lot on them, but my favorites are tuna, corn and mushrooms. But like with each pizza, the choice is absolutely up to you! Add a slice of cheese on top, or grated for that matter, and bake this in the oven until the cheese has just melted enough. Take out and enjoy!

Egg bread, French toast but savory

Again, one of those recipes that don’t even need much of an explanation. Cut the bread into thin-ish slices and whisk some eggs with a dash of milk. Season that with a bit of salt and black pepper and softly press those slices into the eggy mixture before frying them in a pan with a bit of oil. My mother loves to make these, but I’m more into "minimal eggs and maximum oil" close to the end of the egg mixture getting all used up. Of course, you can make these a bit differently by directly putting the bread into the eggs and frying them all together, but the bread will soak up quite a bit. So keep that in mind if you want a soft bread texture. I’m a sucker for the crunchiness!

A classic: Bread pudding

Now this one I didn’t learn until recently but it has joined the ranks of my go-to recipes for sure! The combination of a simple pudding with bread makes for an interesting mix that you need to try as soon as possible.

Ingredients