Back when I couldn’t be bothered saving money I used to buy breadcrumbs, I didn’t even think twice about it. I also used to throw away any bread that we weren’t going to use. These days I turn it all in to breadcrumbs.

Why throw away something that you can use? Making breadcrumbs is really easy to do, if you have a food processor or a blender, throw your crusts and any bread you’re not going to use in and blitz it. Keep blitzing until the breadcrumbs are the size that you desire.

Just like bread, breadcrumbs can grow mould too. After blitzing, I like to put my breadcrumbs into the freezer. I usually put 1 cup into each bag and freeze them with the date and volume of breadcrumbs written on the bag so I can use the oldest first.

If I don’t have any breadcrumbs in the freezer and I’m using the breadcrumbs in a recipe (not to coat, just to pad out items like rissoles) then I will use two pieces of crust from the loaf of bread on the bench and I will grate it straight into the mixture because it doesn’t matter if they’re a bit coarser than usual. 2 crusts will make about 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs.

Other things you can do to make breadcrumbs is to pop your bread into the toaster first, when you blitz the toast you will have toasted breadcrumbs. You can also freeze the bread first before blitzing it or toasting it and then blitzing it. This way you can make one big batch at a time instead of cleaning your food processor/blender every single day.

Note: I do not recommend using old, stale or mouldy bread to make breadcrumbs with. You will only end up with old, stale and mouldy breadcrumbs that would not be nice in any recipe. If there is a chance your bread is going to go stale or mouldy, put it in your freezer immediately and make breadcrumbs later.