Most Brits have bread at home as the staple ingredient is essential to accompany all sorts meals and to make sandwiches, and it’s super easy to whip up too. However, when it comes to keeping the food staple fresh, this can be a more difficult task, with it being known to spoil pretty quickly.
If you’re tired of seeing your bread go mouldy and soggy, there’s a simple thing you can do to avoid this. According to Anne-Claude, who shares all sorts of food hacks on social media, you just need to wrap it in a simple kitchen item to keep it fresh for longer, and the food storage hack is super simple to pull off.
Sharing her advice online, she said the best way to store bread is to get a “breathable tea towel”, and roll your loaf into it. After this, simply place it in a bread bin, and this should help to keep it as fresh as possible.
Anne-Claude added that, if you cut your loaf, you should also store it cut-side down, as this will help to keep your loaf “extra fresh.” If you’ve made too much bread, she said it’s best to freeze it if it won’t be used within two to three days.
When you’re ready to use it, you can then defrost it the night before. When ready to eat, you can also reheat your loaf to make it feel like it’s freshly baked.
Little you may know, wrapping bread in a clean, breathable tea towel helps to keep it fresh. This is because the towel absorbs excess moisture, which helps to stop sogginess, while allowing the bread to breathe.
This will help to keep the crust crisp. For even better freshness, store the wrapped bread in a bread box and place the loaf cut-side down before covering it.
When it comes to a freshly baked loaf, it’s said wrapping it in a tea towel will help to keep it fresh for two to three days. If you like sourdough, this can even stay nice and fresh for up to a week.
It’s important to keep it out of sunlight during storage. As well as this, you need to keep it away from certain appliances in the kitchen.
You may not realise, but it’s not actually ideal to store bread near a fridge or a dishwasher. This is because both appliances generate heat and moisture, which has the potential to dry out paper-bagged bread or cause plastic-bagged bread to mould quickly.
Other ways to keep bread fresh
There are also various other things you can try to keep bread as fresh as possible. Some examples include:
- Make sure your bread is stored in a cool and dry place. It shouldn’t be exposed to direct sunlight, heat or excess moisture.
- Wrap bread in a paper bag, a clean cloth or a linen bag to enable some air circulation. This will help to stop the crust from getting soggy.
- Don’t refrigerate bread, as this can lead to it drying out and becoming stale faster, especially if it’s not properly wrapped.
- To allow your bread to last longer, you can freeze it. Pop it in a tightly wrapped plastic wrap, and add a layer of foil or freezer paper to prevent freezer burn.
- When freezing, make sure you use freezer-safe bags and remove as much air as possible before sealing. This will help to boost its freshness.
- Make sure you label and date the bag so you don’t consume the bread after it’s exceeded its sell by date.