By the author of What to Eat When You’re Broke If you bake your own bread or buy it from a bakery, you know that fresh bread doesn’t last as long as the squishy, factory-bagged grocery store offerings. That’s because it’s not loaded with preservatives, additives, and softeners. The regular use of fresh bread almost guarantees one thing: stale bread. Marie’s article on making your own breadcrumbs got me thinking about this.My daughter works at an upscale Italian restaurant and she regularly brings home fresh bread, and I simply cannot keep up with it. If I made breadcrumbs from all of it, I’d soon be able to build a house with all the crumbs! So how else can you use up your bread once it’s past peak deliciousness? Here are some ideas you may like. Seven ways to use stale bread Here are some ideas you might like for using up stale bread. First, it’s important to catch the bread while it’s still simply stale. Once it’s moldy, I’m not personally too keen on using it. I generally toss my bread into the freezer after a few days so that it doesn’t get beyond the point where I can use it. Chicken and dressing This is one of my most common uses. In a trick I learned from my sweet mother-in-law, I keep an old ice cream bucket in the freezer with odds and ends of bread. Crusts that have been cut off, bread that was about to go stale, dinner rolls, and the like can all go into the bucket. Whenever I’m going to make roasted chicken (or even roasted chicken pieces), I pull out the bucket and lay the bread on a baking sheet in a single layer. I pop this in the oven for an hour or so at about 200 degrees to thoroughly dry it out. If I didn’t have pets, I’d just lay the baking sheet out and let it get to the right stage of staleness.Then I chop it up and turn it into dressing (in the South) or stuffing (in the North.) Just use the bread bits in your own favorite recipe. Your family will be certain they accidentally stumbled into a holiday dinner! Bread pudding My friend Scott loves bread pudding and has tried many different recipes for it. He says that stale bread soaks up the liquid better. While he tends to improvise his recipe, you might like this one. It doesn’t have any expensive or exotic ingredients and you probably already have everything you need on hand. Really, this is like a bowl of French toast. (Which, of course, is another use for stale bread.) You can even drizzle some maple syrup on top of your pudding! Make your own “stovetop stuffing” mix This is another awesome use for odds and ends of bread in your freezer bucket. I find this is best done in a dehydrator for efficiency – using the oven all day will heat up your house and use a fair bit of power. Dice your bread up into small, uniform pieces and thoroughly dehydrate it. When it’s done, put it in a large bowl and add dehydrated onion flakes, sage, salt, pepper, and celery seed. You can also use Poultry Seasoning. Toss everything well and store it in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. When it comes time to use it, I like 1/2 cup of broth and a tsp of butter to 2 cups of stuffing mix. Bring the broth/butter to a boil, then remove it from the heat and stir in the mix. Let it sit for about five minutes, and you’re good to go. (My “secret” ingredient to add in is dried cranberries. YUM!) Croutons Cut your bread into 1/2-inch to 1-inch cubes, based on your preferences. Toss it in olive oil and sprinkle it with your favorite seasonings. (I like garlic and onion powder, paprika, and a teeny pinch of salt.) Spread it on a baking sheet and bake it at 375 degrees, stirring regularly. Let them cool completely before putting them in a jar for storage. Rusks This isn’t my favorite use, but people in Greece seem to LOVE it. There, a lot of restaurants used “rusks” as the base of dishes like pasta or salad. A rusk is a piece of twice-baked bread, usually made from yesterday’s loaf. They generally have some olive oil and garlic on top. They’re so popular that you can even get them packaged. Fried bread I started making this when I lived in Montenegro in an apartment that had no toaster and no oven. Simply slather butter on both sides of your bread and pop it in the frying pan as though you’re making a grilled cheese. Get each side lightly browned for a crisp, delicious outside and a soft center. Grilled sandwiches Something in one of my European apartments was a small grill that is used for making toast or for making grilled sandwiches. You assemble your sandwich, add butter or olive oil to the outside of the bread, and smash it together in a preheated grill for about five minutes. It’s tasty, warm, and so much more satisfying than a cold sandwich. I think it should be the law that all grilled sandwiches contain cheese to get gooey and delicious, don’t you? What about you? Do you have any uses for stale bread that aren’t listed here? Do you make your own bread or buy fresh bread? What do you do with it when it’s past peak perfection? Let’s discuss stale bread in the comments section! About Daisy Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging author and blogger who’s traded her air miles for a screen porch, having embraced a more homebody lifestyle after a serious injury. She’s the heart and mind behind The Organic Prepper, a top-tier website where she shares what she’s learned about preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty. With 17 books under her belt, Daisy’s insights on living frugally, surviving tough times, finding some happiness in the most difficult situations, and embracing independence have touched many lives. Her work doesn’t just stay on her site; it’s shared far and wide across alternative media, making her a familiar voice in the community. Known for her adventurous spirit, she’s lived in five different countries and raised two wonderful daughters as a single mom.  Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and X. The post 7 Delicious Ways to Use Up Stale Bread appeared first on The Organic Prepper.