The Best Ways to Use Bread Loaf Heels

There are so many great conversations on the Hotline -- it's hard to choose a favorite. But we'll be doing it, once a week, to spread the wealth of our community's knowledge -- and to keep the conversation going.

Today: The bookends of bread can be put to good use.

It's a vicious cycle: We take a fresh loaf of sliced bread home, untwist the bag, and without hesitation, pick the second slice from the top for our sandwiches, toasts, and snacks. Our unbreakable habit continues until we're elbow deep in our bag of bread and left with two lonely pieces of crust a few days later. We feel too guilty to throw the heels away, so we leave them to stale and mold in the pantry while we head to the market to pick up a fresh loaf.

This week, community member VE turned to the Hotline for suggestions on how to embrace these crusty slices. Thankfully, our community fired back with a host of clever uses.

Breadcrumbs

• Nothing beats the texture and flavor of homemade breadcrumbs -- add them to pastas, sprinkle them on salads, or use them to coat meat or fish. Karen and ChefJune make their own, collecting their loaf heels until they have enough to make a big batch. For recipes calling for spiced breadcrumbs and flavored breadings, ChefJune adds fresh herbs and spices to the grated heels before toasting.
• IlovePhilly echoes the breadcrumb praise, also throwing in a suggestion for freshly toasted, buttery croutons in case of a "spur-of-the-moment Caesar salad."

More: Grate your loaf ends into breadcrumbs of all shapes and sizes.

Cheese Toast

• HalfPint relies on the tried-and-true combination of bread and cheese, buttering the crusts and coating them with cheese before pan-frying them to crispy, cheesy perfection.
• If you're feeling fancy, add some mustard and Worcestershire sauce and call it Welsh rarebit, as Jan Weber suggests.

More: Make your coworkers jealous with an unapologetically cheesy desk lunch. 

Soups, Spreads, and Sauces

• Mstv goes an unconventional route, using the stale slices to thicken her soups. Tear the stale heels into smaller pieces, then allow them to soak in the soup for a few minutes before puréeing the mixture and reheating. 
• Need a break from hummus? Jan Weber recommends blending the heels with peppers, nuts, and spices for a hearty, textured muhammara. 
• Savorthis blends rogue loaf ends into her romesco sauce for a heartier texture.

Bread Pudding

• Bread pudding is the standard go-to dessert for stale or unwanted scraps of bread, and you can adjust ratios and flavors depending on the type of heels you have on hand. Karen sticks to classic bread pudding while Declan takes a cue from the Brits with traditional bread and butter pudding. 

More: Look past bread pudding with these seven recipes that transform bread into dessert.

Tell us: How do you use your loaf ends?

Photos by James Ransom