I hate to get rid of odds and ends of things. I’ve shown a few ways I use up leftover food items, such as freezer soup. I use a variety of leftover breads in my stuffing at Thanksgiving. Even after that, I had tons of leftover bread last year, and so decided to use up a bunch and make bread crumbs.

I was surprised at how much leftover bread crusts I had after I made stuffing. Some was used to make bread pudding, but I still had about 20 cups left. I tore the pieces of bread into roughly inch chunks. I then spread them on a couple of big cookie sheets.

Put them in the oven at 250 degrees for about an hour and a half, checking periodically to see how dry the bread is. When it is completely dry and cool, you can start blending the bread.

Put them in the blender about a cup or so at a time and pulse the bread until it is fairly fine crumbs. All the crumbs were dumped in a large bowl and stirred together.

I then used a measuring cup and put them in bags to put in the freezer. Each bags was about 2 cups. I now have 4 bags of crumbs I can pull out to use in the kitchen.

Now I have bread crumbs……

So what do you do with bread crumbs? They can be mixed with meat for meatloaf or meatballs. Bread crumbs can be put on top of a casserole to add a bit of extra flavor and crunch on top. They can be used to coat fish or chicken before cooking. You can add some to hash browns to make them crispier. They can be fried with seasonings to add extra crunch to a dish. Adding bread crumbs to salmon patties or crab cakes helps to hold them together while cooking.