Don't put your bread in the fridge -- slice it and put it in the freezer!
Because in either case you need to heat it up in the oven/toaster anyways, so you might as well put it somewhere where it will keep for months, rather than weeks.
Harold McGee replies: Good point to bring up! Bread and other lean baked goods are the exception to the rule that cold storage is good. Bread stales faster at refrigerator temperatures than at room temperature. So if you want to keep a loaf for a couple of days, a breadbox is better than the fridge. For much longer than that, the freezer is the best place.
https://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/harold-mc...
Now that we rarely go to the grocery store/order a delivery, I’m using the same trick. We almost got rid of in in the move but I kept it despite it being a temporary pain to deal with.
I found out they often had a trash bag full of bagels they'd throw away if they didn't have a charity to give them to that day.
Since I was a frequent customer, I asked for a bag a few times over the course of four years. I froze about 50 bagels and gave the rest to friends, and I often had a nice toasted bagel free each morning :)
Stores around my college were always pushing English muffins. Half off about once a month. An English muffin covered with peanut butter is astoundingly filling, if you’re low on cash, in a rush, or both.
Because the article doesn't make it entirely clear: to "de-stale" bread, it's not enough to bring it back to room temperature. You actually have to heat it to the "gelation point" (140°F) to undo the chemical reaction that made it stale in the first place. [1]
So even if you don't want it toasted, a quick zap in the microwave will improve its quality immensely.
[1] https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/8226-how-to-revive-...
Generally $3-$5.
To this day I don't really know how to make frozen food properly edible, but today I learned one new thing.
I've found some types of bread (esp supermarket) won't let you break free a slice and end up as one big lump. In most cases this is pretty crappy bread anyway which we don't bother with.
If I know I'm going to make a sandwich later, but am not sure when, I take the slices out in the morning and leave the on the counter covered with a towel. At first I didn't cover them, but by around lunch time they would just be starting to get a little stale. Covered with the towel, they are fine all day.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/8226-how-to-revive-...
> Incidentally, however, putting bread in the freezer halts the staling process altogether, so it is true that to keep bread for a long period of time, you can put it in the freezer, then take it out and let it thaw at room temperature.
For long-term freezing, a chest freezer with no defrost cycle (which thaws and refreezes contents) is preferable.
While this still keeps your food at a freezing temperature, it prevents any free-floating water particles from forming into ice, instead collecting them and siphoning them out of the freezer. It saves you the hassle of frost in your fridge, but can actually cause more freezer burn, as your food temperatures are fluctuating slightly and that makes it easier for moisture inside your food to escape. ...
https://www.thekitchn.com/the-problem-with-frost-free-freeze...