Bread is a staple in many areas of the world. And in many areas of the world, it is sold in a plastic bag by default. I guess this is the reason why I get so many questions about how we buy and store bread.
Where and how to buy bread plastic-free
We like to buy our bread from a baker at the farmers market or go to a bakery to buy our bread. For one, those places usually don't pre-package their bread, so it is easy to just hold up your bag and say: "Oh, I don't need a bag, I got my own one here 😁!" The other reason is the quality. We aren't the biggest bread fans, so unless it is really good bread, we won't go for it or will prefer to bake our own or just not eat bread at all. 😆
But you don't necessarily have to hit the market or go to a bakery. You can even buy loose loaves, bread rolls, pastries, and cakes in many supermarkets, either at a staffed counter or you can help yourself to it. We just bring our own bag for bread and containers for sticky pastries, and either ask the staff to put it in there or just put it in there ourselves at the self service bread shelf.
What you have to watch out for is to keep your own bag or container at your side of the counter or on top of the counter. Some shops do not mind to take your bag and fill it for you behind the counter, but we usually just hold it open on our side and let the staff member "drop" the bread into it. I like to film and show that in my Insta stories whenever we buy bread, so make sure to check them out!
What kind of bag do you use for bread and where did you buy it?
I have seen the prettiest bread bags on Etsy and Insta, but we just use very common and boring cotton shopping bags for bread. Nothing fancy, nothing produced to hold bread specifically. Trust me, bread isn't very picky 😉
We have two designated “bread bags” at the moment. One was a hand-printed good bye present from a friend when we were about to leave Japan in 2010, and the other one was a freebie we got years ago. Really, you can use any clean cloth bag you have. I once heard that some people even use pillow cases. Whatever can hold the amount of bread you want to buy (and is clean) is fine.
How to you store bread without a plastic bag?
We usually keep as much as we will probably eat in two days and toss it into a kitchen drawer in the bag we bought it in. The rest we pop into the freezer.
If you are worried about your bread losing too much moisture in the cloth bag, just wrap it in another layer of cloth (= another cloth bag or a dish towel). Keeping it in a drawer helps, too.
I honestly have no idea if bread goes stale faster this way compared to keeping it in plastic bags, because we have never had the habit of storing bread out for very long. But I can say that bread in plastic bags will grow mold if you leave it in the bag for too long (happened to me before when I forgot I still had bread!), but bread that you leave out in a cloth bag for too long will only dry out—which means you can still reuse it! You can grind old bread into bread crumbs, use it as a filler for patties, make bread soup, french toast, or go for a bread pudding!
How do you freeze bread? ❄️🍞
We freeze bread wrapped in a dish towel, in a cloth bag or just sitting on a cutting board. Again, you get better results if you just add another layer of cloth. We don’t usually get any freezer burns this way because the main reason for freezer burn is fluctuating temperature in the freezer, and we are very careful when it comes to that. This is how we prevent freezer burns:
- We don’t freeze a lot, so we don’t open the freezer door unless we really have to.
- When we do open the door, we are FAST.
- When we freeze other foods we pre-chill it to prevent the temperature going up in the freezer.
- We only freeze small batches.
Do you buy a lot of bread? How do you store bread? I know many households in Germany have wooden boxes on the countertop to keep bread in. It makes sense, because commonly two out of three meals a day consist of sandwiches (breakfast and dinner). I am always curious, so let me know how you handle bread in the comments below! 😊
Alexandra Arcangel says
Hi, might be a dumb question, but what do you do for thawing out the bread? My mom freezes bread all the time but the bread never seems to taste very good. (I don't know how she thaws it either)
Frieda says
Hello Alexandra,
I don't know what Shia and Hanno do, but I thaw my bread inside a thick cotton bag placed on a wooden kitchen table. I never had any trouble with it. But maybe the type of bread makes a difference? I have only done this with mixed rye/wheat sour dough bread might be different for yeast dough based bread. At least I remember not being too satisfied with how yeast dough based pie tastes after freezing.
Melanie says
I have always toasted frozen bread if I am eating it right away. I know this doesn't give you the same result as fresh bread but it doesn't dry out entirely like it does if you just thaw it completely before eating (or before toasting). The only time I don't toast frozen bread is when I am making a sandwich for lunch. Instead what I do in this case is dress the sandwich while the bread is still frozen and then put it into my to go container of choice (glass or plastic sandwich box). By the time I want to eat my lunch a few hours have passed and the bread has thawed. The combination of thawing in the box and the moisture from whatever you have put on your sandwich helps keep the bread moist. Hope this helps!
Alex says
How long are you freezing your bread for? A week? A month? I make 4 loafs of bread to last me a month and have been storing them in ziplocks. I hate the single use plastics but I didn't know that cloth would keep my bread safe until now!
Lisa says
I use ziplocks too but I do reuse them which makes me happy! I never thought of cloth!
Hannes says
Thanks for tips on storing bread! I thought I'd share as well if you like crisp bread (very common back home in sweden), since they are so dry and crisp without moisture, they last a long time (probably several weeks) and usually made using rye or wholemeal flour - so lasts long and healthy to boot. I usually make mine using sourdough too and store in a round metal tin. Some of these breads are round with hole in the middle so they could be sat on a wooden . Here's a recipe in English if interested. (I love it with some cheese, or I recently made some sauerkraut and had it on the bread with home made mustard and cooked ham):
https://www.nordickitchenstories.co.uk/2017/11/02/swedish-crispbread-knackebrod-recipe/
And here picture of how usually buy in a paper-wrap:
https://cdn.tasteatlas.com/Images/DishRestaurants/56d26250c5ca407a93369177eff57476.jpg?mw=1300
Catherine says
We have been making homemade bread and just reusing ziploc bags for 2 years. Almost out of ziplocs and am very excited to try cloth bags. We have tried beeswax wraps with 0 success. Is there a trick to using those? Videos make it looks so easy, but our bread never stays good in them.