Stale bread: Mum's simple hack to make bread 'fresh' again

Mum reveals simple trick to help make bread rolls fresh again. Photo / 123rf

Wouldn't it be great if you could make stale bread rolls fresh again?

Well, according to one Aussie mum, you can – and all you need is a tap.

Taking to the Facebook group, Budget Friendly Meals Australia, the mum said to place old bread fulls under running water and then pop them in a hot oven.

The simple hack has been around for generations, but it has made a comeback as the desire to reduce waste in the kitchen grows.

"I've been conscious of reducing my waste and using up stale bread rolls has always been a problem," the mum wrote alongside snaps of her resurrected rolls.

"There's only so many breadcrumbs I can keep in the freezer and my kids aren't a fan of defrosted rolls. My mum told me a trick her mum used to do back in the day, and it really works."

She explained that all you need to do is run the bread roll under a tap "so it's wet" and leave it in the oven for a few minutes.

"Honestly, it's like you just bought it from the bakery – so fresh, so yum."

Some questioned whether it works for other types of bread.

After you run it under water, pop it in the oven for a few minutes. Photo / Supplied / Facebook

"I haven't tried normal bread. But when you get bread rolls and they are a day or two old and they get stale I would wet my hand and rub water over it and pop in oven to refresh. Yum," one Facebook user wrote.

"I do this with tiger bread for soups if it goes stale. I wet them with some milk with a pastry brush and chuck it in the oven. As good as new," said another.

Others suggested to just wet a paper towel and cover the bread with it.

"It comes out perfect," the woman claimed. "Yep have been doing this for a long time, I think my mum taught me this one."

Another said the tip had been passed down generations in her family as well.

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Follow @ReduceWasteNow to learn how you can help the environment! . Have you revived stale bread before? 🥖 . Did you know you can easily revive stale bread? All you have to do is run your stale bread under the tap (it seems weird but it works), then pop the bread on a tray and into your oven on the "warm" setting, or at 200° for a few minutes, make sure you check on it and leave it in the oven or take it out as needed! 🍞 . To prevent your bread from going stale too often, try freezing it! If you have a lot of bread and don't think you'll be able to finish it before it goes stale, toss it in a cotton bag then throw it in the freezer! . Have you tried another method of reviving stale bread? Tag someone who's trying to reduce waste! #ReduceWasteNow . #stalebread #cookinghacks #foodsystem #plasticpollution #waronwaste #nowastedfood #noplanetb #sustainabledevelopmentgoals #wastemanagement #zerowastecommunity

A post shared by ReduceWasteNow Zero Waste Shop (@reducewastenow) on May 20, 2020 at 11:01am PDT

"I live in the Outback and grew up on a very isolated property," another said.

"When I was younger and bread was not in plastic, if the crust was very hard on both rolls and bread you would quickly pass it under a running tap and then put it in the oven. It would come out beautiful and fresh."