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Never Chuck Stale Bread?
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Never Chuck Stale Bread?



Some might see it as past its best but stale bread becomes its own special ingredient. There’s TONS of recipes that specifically want stale bread. The fresh stuff doesn’t work, you actually want it stale. And fear not, if you all have is fresh bread, you can always make it ‘stale’ by baking it on a low heat in the oven until it dries out.

This recipe is called ribollita, a bread stew recipe from Tuscany, Italy. It’s hearty, warming and the perfect winter stew. Recipe below if you want to give it a go!

Recipe (serves 3-4)

Ingredients:
200g stale bread, cut into 2-3cm cubes
3 carrots, finely diced
3 stalks celery, finely diced
1 red onion, finely diced
6 italian sausages, casings removed (normal sausages are great too)
1tsp fennel seeds
1tsp chilli flakes
3 stalks rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 litre chicken stock (or veg stock)
1 400g can plum tomatoes
1 400g can white beans
150g cavolo nero or kale, stalks removed and roughly chopped
Salt & Pepper to taste
Parmazan and olive oil to serve

1.Tear off bite sized pieces of sausage into a pot with olive oil on medium-high heat. Cook until browned and crispy, about 15 minutes.

2.Add fennel seeds & chilli flakes and fry for another 2 minutes. Add celery, carrots, and onion and cook for a further 15 minutes. Deglaze with a splash of water if the bottom starts to brown too much.

3.Add rosemary and basil leaves to the pot then pour in the stock, white beans (juice and all), and crushed plum tomatoes (with hands). Cook for another 15 minutes on medium-low heat then add the cavolo nero. Cook for a further 10 minutes then add the stale bread cubes. Carefully mix then simmer for another 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

4. Serve with parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

#cooking #food #foodwaste #recipe #bread

41 Comments

  2. @annaleekiser8721

    I have my own ribollita recipe, however, it has no meat, but instead plenty of potato’s and beans. Most of the ribollita I’ve had in Tuscany doesn’t have any meat in it at all, actually

  19. @Deletirium

    We just feed it to the deer here. We're in a mountain suburb 20 miles from any hunting grounds, so the deer hang out on everyone's porch. One doe brings each new fawn by to meet us each year.

  28. @The_right_path_ma

    we have something similar in Morocco, but with no meat in it, only vegetables and lentils and of course bread.. it's a forgotten meal nowadays, but it was very common.. my grandmother used to make it for us during cold days.. simple, cheap, nutritious and very delicious.. I really miss it

  30. @DoubleAcooks

    We just started our cooking journey too! We got inspired by your videos, let us know how to improve! Big Up🙌

  31. @DanielKaetsu2724

    Another thing we do with stale hard bread is basically grate it to make grated bread, this way we can use it to make something like fried chicken breasts with bread crumbs from grated bread (a cheese grater can do the job!).