The Bottom of the Bag: Stale junk/snack foods remnant uses?
I really try not to let the kids or my husband open a new bag of pretzels, chips, crackers, or what have ya, until things are gone in the cupboard. However, that doesn't always happen unless I squirrel things away in an unknown hiding spot. So, when I clean out the snack cupboard and find an inch or two at the bottom of the bag of different snacks, I no longer get in a snit--I still make them eat them, but recycle them into a baked snack mix or "crouton mix."
Baking the snack remants in a slow oven with seasonings revives their crispiness and gives them a different flavor. My husband usually takes a chicken and green salad to work for lunch and if I know he's been a culprit in abusing the "don't open another bag until the cupboard's empty" rule, he gets oven toasted/refreshed (you're lucky they're not stale) snack food croutons for his salad.
What do you guys do with your less than fresh junk food? Or fresh junk junk food that is outside the norm, for that matter? I happen to love tuna salad on whole wheat with sour cream potato chips sandwiched in the middle.
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21 Comments:
Toss the crispy frits & such in a plastic bag, expend your aggressions with a rolling pin, and top a baked casserole.
whoot at 10:26PM on 07/14/09
For corn chips the first thing that came to mind was migas.
You usually use corn tortillas torn up but if you throw in corn chips they'll sop up the butter or oil in the pan and take on the consistency of what a corn tortilla would have after being scrambled in eggs.
Then just throw in some chopped onion, chorizo, and hot sauce and you've got breakfast.
AyeEat at 10:53PM on 07/14/09
Hey, I thought we here at seriouseats were supposed to be the kind of people who made their own junk food. (Actually, I do make crackers and chips and such, but they're nowhere near as satisfying as a Ritz or Dorito.)
One daughter-in-law does crushed Doritos mixed with tuna and mayo.
I've used pretzels and assorted crackers for crumb coating--I do the rolling pin thing or run them through the blender to make really fine crumbs.
betteirene at 1:21AM on 07/15/09
I was just wondering about this same thing this afternoon, staring down an almost-empty bag of pita chips!
mikaque at 1:31AM on 07/15/09
On the very rare occasion I have chips or pretzels in the house, they never make it to stale or leftover.
However my gramma often had that issue, she would not be able to finish a bag of something she bought, or had put out for a gathering or got for the grandkids and would have those stale leftovers.
She would do them up 30's style in crumb cookies.
Anything fairly plain, crackers, cookies, potato chips, pretzels, even snack cakes would get dried out a bit and ground to crumbs. (Nothing with a cheese or other flavor) Then she would add some butter and egg and a little sugar to make a dough, and rebake them into cookies. Most had a sort of salty/sweet thing going, and were not bad when I was a kid. I still have an uncle who loves them and wishes his wife would make them like gramma did.
I've done this with cake crumbs, but never have with such an array of 'assorted' crumbs. It was certainly a "use it up" mentality that saved waste!
sadiepix at 3:05AM on 07/15/09
Compost cookies! Pair them with M&Ms, Reeces Pieces, or chopped up chocolate in chocolate chip, peanut butter, or blondie bases.
HeartofGlass at 5:21AM on 07/15/09
Try here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/good-questions/good-question-what-can-i-do-with-stale-tortilla-chips-046231
and here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/good-questions/what-can-i-do-with-crushed-tortilla-chips-good-question-089877
for some good ideas
avryan at 8:01AM on 07/15/09
We usually don't have any leftover or stale chips. They are a treat and disappear quickly.
On those rare occasions- crushed crumbs for oven frying, casserole topping, etc. Corn chips can be freshened in the oven and used as a chili topping or in chicken-tortilla-lime soup.
If something's truly stale-- compost.
CJ McD at 10:44AM on 07/15/09
@AyeEat - Ditto on migas. Half the reason I buy corn chips and salsa is the thought of migas - maybe my favorite egg dish of all. It kills two birds with one stone the day after a party, too - the perfect hangover breakfast, and you use up the stale chip remnants!
producestories at 12:50PM on 07/15/09
Leftover plain crackers or even cornflakes, smashed up, make awesome breading for baked chicken and pork.
savecara at 1:05PM on 07/15/09
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this world where if you don't eat all your junk food, it gets snuck onto your salad so you do eat all of it. I mean, I get the idea that you don't want to throw food away, but it just seems odd to me in so many different ways.
dbcurrie at 3:07PM on 07/15/09
I agree with the crushed-into-crumbs bit for breading. In fact, I recently saw (Dallas Morning News?) a recipe for chicken nuggets with crushed BBQ chips as the coating. Unseasoned ones get dressed up with crushed peppers, mixed dried herbs, whatever. The casserole topping idea works also. And you can saute the crumbs in oil or butter with seasonings to sprinkle on top of plain veggies.
morgancain at 4:16PM on 07/15/09
@dbcurrie--with my husband it's not chips, it's the stray couple of triscuits, almonds or sourdough pretzels. Once there"s just a few left he opens the next box or bag or jar which a.) takes up room in the cupboard as the old stuff gets shoved to the back and b.) he's doing the same thing that he bitches about the kids doing. Triscuits, almonds and sourdough pretzels are really great alternatives to croutons on salads and they're often lower in calories than croutons. And it always sends the message home to him that he needs to finish off what's there rather than just grab the newest box.
I honestly think it's a bit of a laziness factor with him and the kids--rather than have to empty one box/bag and then open another to get the amount they want in the snack bowl they simply grab the new one. And I do insist that they not eat out of the bag. We went snack free for a month because the kids were consuming a whole bag of chips or pretzels in a day. It's far too easy for them to over indulge if the bag is right there. Thankfully they are very phyiscally active so there's no weight issue to contend with.
The combining of the bits of different things that are a tad stale into a snack mix makes sense to me, simply because I do get tired of lecturing and also if it's warm out of the oven, their friends love to have a warm snack after getting out of the pool at night.
In the end, I may just end up hiding the new snack food someplace in the basement until the cupboard is completely empty and not have to be bothered by the whole leftover bits altogether.
dhorst at 7:38PM on 07/15/09
Good golly, sorry about the typos there.
dhorst at 8:00PM on 07/15/09
My father will eat anything, as long as he doesn't have to cook it and it has salt and/or chocolate in it.
embolini9 at 8:39PM on 07/15/09
@dhorst, in my house it's pickles. One poor, sad lonely pickle, floating in a jar... I've actually taken to "downsizing" things like that so that I don't have giant jars with one pickle here, ten olives there...
No one around here really eats snacks much. Crackers we eat with cheese, but they go from the package into an airtight, bug-invasion-free sealed jar. Nuts, I also repackage, but nuts are mostly for baking rather than snacking.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using up the last bits of anything, I just thought the example was kind of humorous -- you didn't finish your junkfood, so it's going on your salad. In most homes, the problem would be getting someone to eat the salad in the first place, and the crunchy stuff would be the incentive.
dbcurrie at 9:44PM on 07/15/09
it's nice to see how people recycle bits of pretzles, chips, et al..... i think it's a good idea .... we're not big snack people so if i open a bag of chips or something, i'll heat seal it up ... then it usually sits and sits ... eventually, i'll crush it up and give it to the birds. (not that they need junk food, either)....
or if it's potato chips - i'll usually eat the whole bag and then i won't touch another bag for 6-8 months.... my one true love.
pooch at 10:37PM on 07/15/09
I just toss the stale stuff. They are empty calories anyway, so I don't see the point in eating them if they're not enjoyable.
We usually only buy one bag of chips/etc. at a time anyway, so there isn't a second bag to open while the first goes stale.
On a very frightening side note, we got a huge bag of Doritos at Costco a few weeks ago and it was gone in less than a week. And we don't have kids!
yayfood at 10:10AM on 07/16/09
Crush into crumbs and use to bread fish, or smash into chunks and bake into cookies or bars (especially pretzels... yum...)
CookiePie at 10:42AM on 07/16/09
Crush them and use as binder in a meat loaf.
CJ McD at 11:57AM on 07/16/09
Sometimes my husband and I will just take stale tortilla chips and toss them directly into our salsa and eat it with a spoon. Tastes pretty good that way.
missjess at 7:05PM on 07/16/09