I’ve always thought that buying breadcrumbs was a total waste of money. Not only is it easy to prepare some of your own, it’s also a great way to make use of a few days old bread. But you don’t want to make use of fresh from the oven bread for this. It’s the bread that you just simply couldn’t find ways to use before its expiry that makes great breadcrumbs. I don’t know how many of you feel the utter sense of despair when u look at the “best  before” tag on the bread and realise that you should have eaten it yesterday or the day before instead of cereals or whatever for breakfast. I do. There is an overpowering sense of utter waste to throw it away. But looking at the “best before” date on the tag sends warning signals to my brain not to consume it. So what do I do with it?

1. Scan the bread for mold. In colder places, mold tends to take a longer time to grow on bread. So in winter, I have an abundant supply of breadcrumbs! If there’s mold, forget the breadcrumb agenda.
2. Preheat the oven to 300F.
3. Place your bread slices in a row on a baking pan. And leave it to dry out in the oven.
4. When you see the bread slices turning crispy and dry, flip the other side. Repeat the process until the bread is dry enough to crumble when you try to break it into pieces. If you want your breadcrumbs to look a lighter shade, use a lower temperature and leave it a little longer. (Alternatively, you could toast the bread in your toaster or a pan.)



5. Remove from the oven and break each slice into 6 pieces. This is just to give you a gauge of how big each broken piece should be.
6. In a VERY DRY blender or food processor, place all the broken pieces into it. It will be slightly warm, but that’s ok.
7. Use the pulse function and pulse the bread pieces until they become breadcrumbs. You can choose to make it very fine by pulsing it longer. Or make it coarser by pulsing it for a shorter time.
8. Leave it to cool before storing in an air tight container. I leave mine in the fridge.
9. Use it as and when you need it.

Isn’t this great? You get to choose the size and color of your breadcrumbs. Best of all, there’s no wastage. Yay!