Let the slice of bread lay out over night, or lightly toast it with only a hint of browning, cool and then whiz in blender, perfect breadcrumbs.

If dried bread crumbs are called for, I toast some bread slices first, let them cool and dry some more in the toaster oven, then break them up and spin them around in my mini chopper to give me fresh dried crumbs. Some meatball and meatloaf recipes have you soak the bread in milk first, in this case you could use fresh or air dried bread slices. I usually add dried crumbs to the meatloaf mix w/o soaking it, but not a large amount of crumbs which can make the meatloaf crumbly. I mix the crumbs in with the egg, milk, catsup, seasonings etc. then put the meat in by small amounts and mix briefly with the mixer paddle.

Mercy, I don't let them sit out, etc. I'll take a loaf of sourdough bread that's just gotten too old and a little stiff and tear it into pieces small enough for my little food processor and pulse it till they are crumbs. Then I bag them and into the freezer. I add to the bag whenever my current "loaf" of bread gets a little too old. And yes, the breadcrumbs will get a little frost on them in the freezer but it's never made any difference in them.

Also, I know on a couple of occassions I've mixed the kind of bread that I made crumbs with. Like sourdough and wheat.

Whenever I need some breadcrumbs for a recipe, I just take the bag out of the freezer and throw however much in a skillet with a little butter/olive oil mix and brown them up. Works like a charm.

Beth

For meatloaf, I use bread that's a day (or two) old. Tear the bread into small pieces & plop in some sour cream (acts as a tenderizer for the meat). Stir the bread into the sour cream & let it sit while I gather the rest of the meatloaf ingredients (say, 15 minutes). I mix my meatloaf by hand (literally, with my hands).

For general purprose bread crumbs, I also let the bread sit out overnight during the winter when the air is dry in the house (it would mold here in the summer!). Then, whiz in the food processor. I usually don't make more crumbs than I need for a recipe except if I end up with quite a bit of leftover bread & already have bread pudding in the freezer.

BTW, no question is dumb. Ask away.

/tricia

I am surprised no one uses the microwave. I use my microwave to make dried crumbs. Just pop a few slices of bread in the microwave to dry them out, break them in smaller chunks then process until the desired texture. I don't like to keep a lot of dried bread crumbs around so just make a cup when one cup is required. Pretty handy.

Al

I keep a bag in the freezer for odd left-over bread crusts, buns, and the like. Periodically I buzz them in the blender to make crumbs, which are stored in the freezer in a 4l ice cream bucket (I have lots of recipes that use breadcrumbs.)

I remember my mom always had a paper bag just in her cupboard where she stored stale bread, which got ground into crumbs in her crank-style meat grinder twice a year when she needed crumbs for turkey dressing. She was visiting me when I lived in Houston 17 yrs ago, and chided me for throwing out crusts instead of having a bag like she always did. So I said, "Mom, you just don't understand! Bread doesn't go stale here, it goes green!"

I save bits and pieces in the freezer bread heels and halves of buns that no one wanted etc. It ake them out, thaw them and put them into the Cuisinart with the medium shredding disc and grate them....then I put the crumbs onto a cookie sheet and into a 300 oven 7until they are very dry and lightly browned....they keep un refrigerated like forever...as long as you use non fat containing breads....challah won't keep! LOL!
When I need some I can mix some with butter sugar and cinnamon and put on top of an apple crisp or I can season with salt pepper and some dry parsley and ground chili and roll chicken in it to bale...or use some dill and top fish with it...
I always have dry home made bread crumbs around.
Linda c

Thank you all for your suggestions!

Since you mentioned meatballs, I'll tell you what we Italians do. Pour enough milk over dry or fresh slices of bread to saturate the bread. Squeeze out the milk, shred the bread into the meatball mix, pour in the remaining milk and squish the ingredients together until mixed. The milk helps tenderize the meat.

Sherry

Mercy:
I get bags of day old Italian Rolls from my daughters next door neighbor.
Cut them in pieces and put them in a warm over, until they are dry.
Then into the blender and pulse them.

Or you can put them in a gallon Zip lock and beat the hell out of them with a rolling pin.
Then roll them until you get what you want.
Only takes a minute.

If you put pieces in the blender when they are just starting to get hard,
you will get crumbs , plus small pieces.
Perfect for Meat loaf.

I dry all my crumbs and put them into air tight containers,
or Zip lock bags.
The Food Market here gives me Gallon Mayo containers from the Deli section.
They even wash them for me.

I give them something in return , like a small bag of Pizzelles.

Lou

PS :
I usually turn the oven on till warm.
Don't walk away from the oven, when drying the bread or crumbs, like I do every so often.
I realize this too late , when I smell something burning.

Lou

"Since you mentioned meatballs, I'll tell you what we Italians do. Pour enough milk over dry or fresh slices of bread to saturate the bread. Squeeze out the milk, shred the bread into the meatball mix, pour in the remaining milk and squish the ingredients together until mixed. The milk helps tenderize the meat.

Sherry"

Sherry, this how I remember my mom putting bread into her meatballs/meatloaf. But that is where I am confused, I have tried that and seem to get (too)big hunks of bread. Maybe I just need to make the pieces smaller?? I tried this the other day and ended up just throwing the soggy bread away, and tried again with dry bread.

Sherry:
I've never seen any Italians use milk in the bread for meatballs, new to me.

I always mix all the dry ingredents together, dampen with egg and chicken Stock.
Then mix it throughout the ground meat.
In fact I use the KA mixer to mix the meatballs.

Then brown them in the oven.
Lou

I like the meatloaf better since I quit using crumbs and started tearing the bread as was recommended by several. Occasionally I'll toast it lightly but usually not. If I'm making a larger loaf I'll cut the bread into cubes otherwise I'll tear it down to about cube size. I did find it helped to let it soak in the fluids, milk, egg, steak/BBQ sauce or whatever I was using in there. Never had big chunks in the end result after mixing it in with the meat. The bread seems to break down in there.

Just the other day I read a recipe where they said to just grate the dried breads to make crumbs. I don't mess with a food processor or blender so that sounded interesting. Thought it could be a good use for leftover garlic bread. The birds usually don't like the garlic.