Bread that’s gone stale (but not moldy) is a handy ingredient for soup in a number of ways. The most obvious is making croutons with it to sprinkle over your soup for an extra bit of crunch. But using stale bread to make delicious soups, especially in the Mediterranean, is an age-old trick. In Spain, stale bread is added to gazpacho. In Italy, pancotto is a bread soup with multiple variations, depending on the region. In Tuscany, ribollita soup is the perfect way to use up stale bread, created with a chunky broth of tomatoes, kale, and white beans, while the bread is added to achieve a denser, richer texture.

Of course, you don’t need to wait for bread to get stale to do this. Using fresh bread works just as well, but bread is notoriously quick to turn hard, and using stale bread to make something tasty is an added benefit for those opposed to food waste. As soon as it’s added to a hot liquid, bread dissolves into a silky, starchy mixture that adds not just density, but also a pleasant wheat flavor to soup.