How To Make Bread Crumbs

Making fresh bread crumbs at home is super easy and a great way to avoid food waste.

In traditional cuisines food is never wasted, especially something as precious as bread which was revered as almost holy – perhaps because of its association with the Eucharist or perhaps because it was sometimes all that people had to eat.

In Mediterranean countries, older people still remember a time when a dropped piece of bread was kissed before being discarded, if it was indeed discarded rather than simply dusted off to be eaten.

With growing concern about global food waste, we can take our lead from such traditions and find ways to use leftover bread, whether in salads, soups, cakes, puddings or as bread crumbs.

Any stale bread, from sourdough to Lebanese flatbread, can be pulsed into bread crumbs in a food processor.

Some cooks recommend discarding the crusts, but I don’t see why. Lebanese bread makes super fine bread crumbs while more rustic bread makes coarser crumbs, and they all have their uses.

You’ll need:

food processor

Here’s how to how to make fresh bread crumbs:

As a rough guide, 100g (3½oz) fresh rustic bread (about 2 slices) will weigh 75g (2⅔oz) when stale/dried and yield about 1 cup of coarse bread crumbs.
Chop bread roughly and place it in a food processor, blitz until finely crumbed.
Tip into a bowl and shake the bowl to bring larger pieces to the top, then blitz them a bit finer if need be.
If you need bread crumbs and don’t have any stale bread, put some fresh bread into a 100°C (210°F) oven for about 40 minutes, until brittle.
Store bread crumbs in a sealed plastic bag in the freezer and use straight from frozen to coat food; add to stuffings, rissoles and fish cakes; or toast in a little olive oil to sprinkle over pasta (see video below).

Now you know how to make fresh breadcrumbs you can use them in Turkish Tuna ‘Meatballs’ (balik köftesi), Albóndigas de Atún (Spanish tuna ‘meatballs’), Spicy Lamb Sausage Rolls, and Stuffed Artichokes; to coat Chicken Kiev, Veal Schnitzel and Salami-stuffed Chicken Drumsticks; and to sprinkle over pasta dishes like ‘Nduja Strozzapreti and Orecchiette with Broccoli & Anchovies.