Clean Your Spice Grinder With Bread; Congratulate Yourself With Spiced Breadcrumbs

If you own an electric spice grinder, you know that they can be invaluable in the kitchen. You also likely know that they can be tricky to clean.

Most manufacturers and professionals warn against putting them under running water, since too much moisture can affect the works. Although, I must confess, I've cleaned an unplugged (!!) spice grinder this way more than once and suffered no problems for it. Still, when working with electrical equipment, it's better to be cautious and not follow my lead here.

Where I do have sound advice is in another way to clean your spice grinder—one that doesn't use any water at all. And that is: use bread.

Blitzing a hunk of soft or lightly stale bread in your spice grinder to clean it isn't revolutionary. But all too often, that blitzed bread gets discarded. Those are spiced breadcrumbs you've got, ready to use!

If you're not ready to use your spiced breadcrumbs right away, you can store them in the freezer marked with "cumin and oregano breadcrumbs" or whatever. You can keep adding to your breadcrumb stash until you have a big batch to pull from. Honestly, though, I tend to incorporate them into my meals pretty quickly after making them, and filling my spice mill once with torn bread and grinding it yields about half a cup or a little more, which is just the right amount for many applications.

You can toss the spiced breadcrumbs on top of a gratin before baking, or fold them into meatballs.

But the best breadcrumb is a toasted breadcrumb. Toasted, spiced breadcrumbs are a perfect topper for, well, whatever you were grinding spices for in the first place. Just melt 3 to 4 tablespoons of butter or olive oil in a skillet. Add 1 cup spiced breadcrumbs and a big pinch of salt. Stir over medium heat until the breadcrumbs are fragrant and golden, 4 to 5 minutes, watching carefully to avoid burning. Drain the breadcrumbs on a paper towel and reserve at room temperature until you're ready to use them.

Sprinkle your toasted, spiced breadcrumbs over pastas, soups, or salads. Toss caraway-and-paprika- spiced breadcrumbs over braised cabbage, chile powder–spiced breadcrumbs over grilled pork with corn salsa, or jerk-spiced breadcrumbs over coconut milk–poached fish.

If your spice mix skews sweet, use the spiced breadcrumbs as a dessert topping. You haven't lived until you've had butter-toasted bread on ice cream; and if there's a better place for crispy, buttery cardamom breadcrumbs than on top of rice pudding, I don't know it.

You can reap the benefits of spiced breadcrumbs if you use a mortar and pestle for grinding spices, too—although I find it's easier to grind crackers (like saltines or something similar) instead of fresh bread if you're going this route. That's what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future, since my electric spice mill just died. On second thought, don't use that under-the-water cleaning method I mentioned above—I guess it really can cause problems.

Want to get that spice grinder dirty? Here are a few of our favorite spice blends:

Originally Appeared on Epicurious