Panzanella – Stale Bread Salad

Have you ever wondered what to do with stale bread? Throw it away? Well, we do that far too often. How about making something tasty out of it instead? Something other than breadcrumbs? I often talk about food waste with my students. You should see how surprised they are when I tell them to cut up dry bread and then even eat it. In the end I hear that it's good, that it's tasty. And that's the whole point.

It doesn't have to be breadcrumbs. It can be a salad. Simple, quick and tasty. Perfect for warm days (which have sadly passed, but they'll be back). Inspired by the Tuscan salad “panzanella.”

Did you know that (according to WWF, Zenodo and the Food Bank) every year about 265,000 tons of bread are thrown away in Poland, 170,000 tons in Switzerland, as much as 1.7 million tons in Germany, and about 900,000 tons in the UK?

In my photo you can see the salad made by my students during class. Unfortunately, the bread wasn't browned. Then it absorbs the sauce much faster. That's why the salad is best eaten right away.

Instructions – Panzanella:

First make the sauce: press the garlic into a small bowl, chop the basil, add the remaining ingredients and set aside.

For the salad: first cut the bread into pieces of about 2 cm. A baguette or ciabatta works too. Brown the bread pieces in a skillet with about a tablespoon of olive oil.

Cut the cucumber however you like: diced, in rounds, or any which way. It doesn't matter. Put it in a salad bowl. Add the chopped bell pepper and the tomatoes cut into pieces. Peel the onion and cut it into thin rings. A note here: as you can see, my students still have trouble slicing onions thinly ;)

Mix the salad ingredients in the bowl and add the bread. Just before serving, toss everything with the sauce and taste. If needed, season with salt and pepper and garnish with basil leaves.

Enjoy!

Inspiration: eat.de