A TikTok user has shared a clever bread hack that helps you save money and reduce food waste all at the same time — and you'll get some free breadcrumbs in the process.
The scoop
In a recent TikTok, the user TheGleasonCo.MealPlanning (@thegleasonco.mealplan) described how she saves money on groceries and reduces her personal food waste by making homemade breadcrumbs. The process is simple — it only requires leftover bread, an oven, and however many spices you opt to include in your breadcrumbs.
"As you see, I have a ton of stale bread, and some of it has already been frozen and thawed once, so I don't want to put it in the freezer," she says in the video. "So I'm making breadcrumbs! I threw them in the food processor … and I can season with whatever I want."
Once the bread is broken into small crumb-sized pieces, she adds caramelized onion burger seasoning from Kinder's to enrich the flavor of the breadcrumbs.
All that's left is the cooking. The TikToker then puts the crumbs in the oven for about 15 minutes at just 300 degrees Fahrenheit and shifts them around in the pan with a spatula every couple of minutes to ensure that they cook evenly.
@thegleasonco.mealplan #foodbudget #foodbudgethack #moneysavingidea #grocerybudget #budgetsavingtips #foodwastesolution ♬ original sound - TheGleasonCo.MealPlanning
How it's helping
The most obvious benefit of making your own breadcrumbs is that you end up using all of the bread that you've already purchased, which means you don't have to buy any pre-made breadcrumbs on your next grocery outing, consequently saving you money on groceries.
Beyond the financial benefit, making your own breadcrumbs — and also embracing the leftover potential of your other food — helps you reduce your personal food waste so you don't throw as much into the garbage. When we throw food away, it eventually ends up in a landfill, where it pollutes our environment and leads to the dangerous overheating of our planet.
In the United States, we waste about one-third of all the food we purchase and produce every year — about 119 billion pounds, equivalent to 130 billion meals worth more than $408 billion in total, according to Feeding America.
It's clear that we need to take every step we can to reduce our wastefulness, and embracing simple leftover hacks like making your own breadcrumbs is one of the easiest ways to start.
What everyone's saying
TikTok users shared their own leftover tips in the comment section of the post.
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"I make croutons out of my bread ends they are super good," one user writes.
"I make open-face hamburgers with all my old frozen buns," another user says.
"I put the ends and stale bread in the freezer until I can make a big batch 🥰," a third user comments.
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