Reusing Used Breadcrumbs?
As part of my Ask A Chef feature, I just received this email from Ellen who is in a debate with her friends about reusing used breadcrumbs. She writes,
Debating with friends whether you can reuse breadcrumbs that egg battered fish were dipped in if I froze it immediately and will cook with it immediately. Everyone says “no” but I don’t understand why when you can freeze raw egg, freeze raw meat and no bacteria would have time to grow freezing it immediately and then cooking immediately! Thanks in advance.
New Contributing Writer Chef Mark R. Vogel
My immediate response would be No too and why bother when breadcrumbs are inexpensive and easy to make yourself, but not being a professional chef or food scientist, I passed this question on to my newest contributing writer, Chef Mark Vogel. You may remember Mark from one of my earliest Novice2Pro interviews and from several great articles he has contributed to the site.
Chef Mark will be contributing articles to my cooking blog that fall into five categories including:
1) Ingredients: articles on a specific ingredients such as onions, butter, tarragon, etc.
2) Classic Dishes: such as crepes suzette or beef Wellington
3) Wine: articles on specific wines and issues with wine
4) Cooking Techniques: These are your classic “how to” articles
5) Food For Thought: These are discussion articles where he delves into some aspect of food and mankind. These run a wide gamut from psychological aspects of food, economics, current topics in the food business, etc. Some of these are straightforward informative discussions such as how to save money at the supermarket or how to choose cookware. However, in others he frequently challenges food myths and irrationalities about food, and what he calls our “food neurotic” culture. Hence…..food for “thought.”
And time to time, like now, Chef Mark will thankfully help me answer questions like these. Here is how he explained it to me -
First of all, freezing does not KILL bacteria, nor does it even completely stop their growth. Rather it inhibits it. Frozen food will eventually go bad.
Second, the used breadcrumbs that have come into contact with the raw fish can possibly have bacteria on them while fresh breadcrumbs would not.
Now, with those two things said, how much actual risk would there be if the used breadcrumbs were indeed frozen immediately, used in the near future and cooked to a temperature that would kill bacteria? Probably not much.
But as cheap as breadcrumbs are, why take any unnecessary chances? Moreover, there isn’t a food on the planet that tastes better after being frozen, (except foods that are frozen in their natural state like ice cream). Fresh breadcrumbs will taste better than fishy, frozen breadcrumbs.
Thank you Chef Mark for a great response and I’m looking forward to reading your contributing posts. If anyone would like to learn more about Chef Mark, please read my Interview with Chef & Food Writer, Dr. Mark Volgel and visit his web site Food For Thought.







