Got plenty of sandwich crusts from leftover peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Use this sandwich crust recipe to make an AWESOME bread pudding!
Here’s an awesome sandwich crust recipe to make bread pudding!
So… I’m a crust cutter. I’m tempted to hang my head in shame about this, except that I don’t have time for all that.
The kids will actually eat their sandwiches just fine with the crusts on, they just leave an abundance of perfectly good non-crusty sandwich left uneaten in an effort to avoid the crust.
So I just started cutting the crusts and that was that.
Pull out these fun connecting questions to share some laughs with your precious ones!
Use them at:
- meal times
- car rides
- as a “calm down” trick
- for dinner time conversation
- or any time the day is getting chaotic or
- you need a reset to connect.
Until the other day when I made 3 kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and saw the crusts sitting in a big pile and thought a dog could subsist on our crusts.
Then my grandmother chimed in, “We need to make bread pudding with that.”
Ding ding ding.
She lived during the Great Depression and told us that people couldn’t afford flour for bread and flour for cake, so they made bread.
Then, if it was too stale to eat or extra, they’d turn it into a cake!
Genius.
What's in this post...
How To Make Bread Pudding With Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich Crusts
It doesn’t matter what type of bread (though we currently use organic or multi grain bread) you use, just collect whatever you have.
The key when making the bread pudding will be cutting them in uniform pieces so they absorb the bread pudding sauce evenly.
Pull out these fun connecting questions to share some laughs with your precious ones!
Use them at:
- meal times
- car rides
- as a “calm down” trick
- for dinner time conversation
- or any time the day is getting chaotic or
- you need a reset to connect.
Ingredients:
- 5 cups of chopped bread crusts (type of bread crust doesn’t matter)
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 4 eggs, beaten
- 2 cups milk (any type of milk is fine)
- 3/4 cup sugar (any sugar substitutes are fine)
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Bread Pudding Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Put chopped bread crusts into an 8-inch square baking pan. Drizzle melted butter over bread. Top with raisins.
- In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Stir until well mixed. Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 40 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.
My kids all love this bread pudding (and any bread pudding!)
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes! Use gluten-free bread or bread crumbs as a substitute for regular bread. Replace dairy milk with a dairy-free alternative like almond milk, soy milk, oat milk, or coconut milk and use dairy-free margarine or oil instead of butter. Substitute eggs with egg replacers, mashed bananas, applesauce, or silken tofu. Ensure that all other ingredients are egg-free, including any bread you use.
Depending on the age of your kids, their involvement will vary but kids of all ages can help make this recipe. Ask them to help gather and measure the ingredients, mix everything up, set the timer, monitor the baking process, taste test, and clean up.
I haven’t tried all of these, but I’ve heard of others using their bread crusts to make homemade croutons, bread crumbs, and bread crust chips.
Pull out these fun connecting questions to share some laughs with your precious ones!
Use them at:
- meal times
- car rides
- as a “calm down” trick
- for dinner time conversation
- or any time the day is getting chaotic or
- you need a reset to connect.
This looks so yummy! Thanks for sharing. I am definitely making it sometime soon!
HOnestly it was SOOO good. My grandmother was even impressed and she’s eaten them her whole life! Ha :)
GENIUS! Thanks Granny!
So so so so good!
I made this, but swapped out the raisins for sea salt caramel chips. Otherwise, no one in my family would touch this. I’ve now made this twice and am about to for the third time. It is DELICIOUS!! Also, I doubled the melted butter because 2 Tbsp. didn’t seem to go very far, and I used nearly a cup of the caramel chips. Amazing!!
I’m about to make this again, and I almost started using a different recipe, which would have been a ginormous mistake!! This time, I’m swapping out the raisins for chocolate chips instead of the sea salt caramel chips, as grocery store prices are exceedingly high & astronomical. My boys have been BEGGING me to bake this Bread Pudding again & I’m finally got the energy to do that today. It’s a big time favorite among my two boys and me. Great recipe!!
Hi, can you please correct the two instances of ‘raising’ to ‘raisins’? My tired brain spent too much time trying to figure out if you were using SR flour or baking powder as some kind of ‘raising agent’. :-) It’s in the oven now though, raisins and all, and I can’t wait to taste it. Thanks for a great recipe!
OH NO. Yes, I’ll do that now :)
thank you! i’ve been stockpiling crusts when making my daughter’s sandwiches. i couldn’t bare to throw them out and waste them, so i needed a recipe! i’m planning to make it this weekend :)
Yes, Mika :) I kept them in a big ziploc bag. I think you can probably even freeze them too!
Yes, you can freeze them. I have 3 bags in my freezer now. Time to make more pudding!!
When my mom made bread pudding, she always made a warm sauce with milk, butter, vanilla and cinnamon cooked for a little while then poured on top of the bread pudding. It was so so good. Unfortunately, she has passed on and I do not have the recipe.
Hi there, Just put your bread pudding recipe in the oven. Sounds great sure it will taste as good. I am not a mother but enjoy searching for recipes on the web. Had some crusts left over and your recipe popped up in my search, so thanks for putting it on line and all the best from South Wales in the UK.
Oh, I hope it tastes good for you! :) I’ve been to Wales once to see a castle… beautiful country
My son turned 2 at the weekend and we had a pile of crusts leftover from the party sandwiches. So I used your recipe for the first time and I’m really impressed. It’s so yummy! I’m a big fan of butter pudding anyway and this is a particularly lovely consistency and flavour. Thank you from all three of us xxx
Woohoo, glad you liked it :)
Same here – made round sealed sandwiches which cuts a circle in the middle of the bread. Couldn’t bear to throw away 2 bags of leftover crusts and am sooo glad I found this recipe. After all these reviews, I’m making it now!
I really love this recipe and have tried it a few times. I added apples to the topping once, and from the second try cut the sugar down to half a cup. Everything still turned out splendidly. Thank you!
Woohoo :)
Really grateful your recipe popped up in my search.
I had made English Summer pudding YUM!!!) which I make once a year. Fruit cooked with sugar, then the uncrusted challah or brioche is dipped into the juice from the fruit and used to line and top the bowl of fruit. Excellent, but I hated to make more bread crumbs from the crusts…
So I had just enough crusts sitting around to make your recipe.
We wonder how this woukd be with chopped apple. Might need to use a 7″ x11″ pan for that.
Thanks again , Judy
Hubby and I give it a definte 10!! Thank you very much!
Awww, love this :) Thanks so much!
Could I add peanut butter and switch the raisins for chocolate chips? I really want to try this. It looks delicious!
Oh if you do please report back :)
I’m used to making bread pudding with crustless slices of white bread but last weekend, when I made high tea sandwiches, I got stuck with a whole bag of crusts.. What to do, what to do ;) Yours is a fantastic recipe for making the absolute most of these leftover bits, thanks!
Thank you so much for this recipe. There was so much bread I actually had to cut off to get uniform, pretty tea sandwiches and I was so sad about wasting so much bread, I decided to look on the internet to see if I could actually use bread crust for bread pudding and I stumble upon your great recipe, thanks again. This was a great idea.
Hi Rachel
Just came across your lovely, friendly website and wanted to make a quick comment. What you have listed as ‘bread pudding’ is actually bread-and-butter pudding. Bread pudding is a different thing – there’s no egg custard involved in it and it’s more of a stand-alone cake-type thing that you buy in chunks, whereas bread-and-butter pudding needs to be served in a bowl, usually with custard or cream. The best one I ever had was in the Jewish quarter in Venice. I had always thought of it as a recipe of UK origin so I was surprised to find it in Venice.
All the best, keep baking,
Caroline (from London)
Caroline, thanks so much for sharing this and I did not know it!
Hi Rachel, First time ever i have made a bread pudding and I found your recipe fantastic. I also added a few cranberries to the mix and it turned out great. The whole family loved it and cannot wait till I make it again. Do you by any chance have any recipes for rice pudding. My mother used to make it many years ago but cannot find a decent home made recipe for it now. Thanks again for a great recipe.
Danny, love to hear that so much! I do not, but man oh man you’ve got me thinking about rice pudding too :)
Just made this recipe and it was delicious. I used some chopped dates and chocolate chips instead of raisins and it worked well. Also, topped with custard… yum. Will say that I added another cup of bread crusts as the liquid was still quite high above the top and it worked out great. I find this quite a flexible recipe.
My Pudding turned out quite yummy and I’d like to get some more time constrained recipes please…
Thank you