When I started making sourdough in 2013, a little bit before I started writing this blog, I knew I’d have to find uses for the discard left over from feeding the new member of our family, my sourdough starter, Eleanor. I couldn’t simply waste all that flour and water! Since then, I’ve come up with many recipes for the discard. Even if you never bake the bread, you may want to keep a sourdough starter on hand just for these 18 recipes.
- Go here to start a sourdough starter that won’t take over your life
- Go here to troubleshoot your troublesome starter
Multigrain Sourdough Discard Bread
This recipe helps clear out random seeds from your pantry—sunflower, flax, poppy, hemp, caraway—while putting a 1½ cup-size dent in your sourdough discard jar.
GO TO RECIPEScrappy Focaccia
Just before baking, if desired, top your prepared dough with little bits of produce on hand to reduce wasted food. This sourdough discard focaccia won’t go uneaten!
GO TO RECIPECrackers
These crackers taste cheesy but contain no cheese. Make the dough in advance, refrigerate it for up to five days and bake crackers when you crave them.
GO TO RECIPESoft pretzels
For this recipe, I sourdoughized this soft pretzel recipe that my daughter Charlotte makes. Like Charlotte’s recipe, this one calls for some active dry yeast. The discard doesn’t have enough life in it to make dough rise, but it has loads of flavor.
GO TO RECIPEPancakes
Since the birth of my starter Eleanor, I doubt a week has gone by during which I haven’t made these at least once. During Covid, I’ve eaten more than usual. Last year when I found myself stranded at my mom’s in Canada at the beginning of lockdowns, I cooked—and ate—stacks and stacks of these pancakes (I always travel with my starter).
GO TO RECIPEVegan pancakes
Fortunately, just before lockdowns last year, I had come up with a vegan version of my popular pancakes. I had no idea at the time that sourdough was about to explode (not literally, but that can happen also).
GO TO RECIPEOvernight waffles
Start the sponge in the morning for these and enjoy breakfast for dinner. They are crispy on the outside, soft-and-fluffy on in the inside. You can use the batter to make pancakes as well, if desired.
GO TO RECIPEBiscuits
These flakey, scrumptious sourdough biscuits are one of the easiest recipes you can make with sourdough discard and they call for an entire cup.
GO TO RECIPEVegetable fritters
These fritters make a nice side dish for dinner or a tasty breakfast that uses up random vegetables. Their portability also makes them good for packing in lunches.
GO TO RECIPEVegan chocolate cake
Last year during the first lockdown, I needed chocolate. I had lots of sourdough discard at my mom’s but few other ingredients so I came up with this cake—a sourdoughized version of Depression era wacky cake.
Since I first posted this, loads of people have tagged me on Instagram with all kinds of variations of it—with sour cherries or nuts or orange liqueur or coconut… Lately I’ve been making it with unsalted broth left over from cooking black beans, a quarter cup of chocolate chips and a tablespoon of fresh orange zest.
GO TO RECIPEVegan carrot cake
When we ran out of cocoa at my mom’s, I made a carrot version of the chocolate cake.
GO TO RECIPEVegan pumpkin (or squash) ginger cake
Thanksgiving. More lockdowns. More cake. This dessert will satisfy your vegan guest’s sweet tooth (or anyone’s for that matter).
GO TO RECIPEPumpkin-spice muffins
Make these with leftover pumpkin or winter squash and ensure two types of food are eaten—vegetables and sourdough discard.
GO TO RECIPEPumpkin-spice quick bread
This pumpkin (or kabocha squash) quick bread tastes like pumpkin pie in bread form.
GO TO RECIPEBanana quick bread
Mashed bananas, like so many foods, freeze very well, which prevents food from going to landfill where it emits methane gas, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. So if you see a good deal on brown bananas at the store, grab them, mash them, make this quick bread and freeze the excess mashed bananas to make more banana quick bread later.
GO TO RECIPESourdough discard egg replacer
This works so well for cookies! To adapt a cookie recipe that calls for flour, replace each egg with a sourdough discard egg and reduce the amount of flour in the recipe by three tablespoons. This works well for chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, snickerdoodles, sugar cookies and so on.
GO TO RECIPEPeanut butter cookies with a sourdough discard flax egg
The sourdough discard flax egg in action! These contain only a small amount of discard but it all adds up. If desired, let the cookie dough ferment for a short time (four to six hours) on the counter.
GO TO RECIPERanger cookies with a sourdough discard flax egg
Ranger cookies are like oatmeal cookies with shredded coconut and dried fruit upgrades. No one can tell I’ve substituted the egg in these. They just ask if they can have some more.
GO TO RECIPEChocolate chip cookies with a sourdough discard flax egg
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with a sourdough discard flax egg
If you’re more of an oatmeal chocolate chip type.
Pita bread
For this recipe, you can make the pita bread dough in advance, store it in the refrigerator and when you crave pitas, tear off a few hunks of dough and quickly make them. I’ve also frozen the dough.
GO TO RECIPEPizza
This pizza and the pita bread are the most popular recipe on my blog. Just about everyone likes pizza. My recipe calls for active dry yeast for leavening (my book includes a recipe for sourdough pizza made with a sourdough leaven only). Like the above pita dough, you can refrigerate or freeze the dough and bake later. The pizza blog post also includes a formula for sourdoughizing other recipes.
GO TO RECIPECalzone
Similar to pizza, you can tailor these based on food you have on hand: sauces, vegetables, cheeses and so on.
GO TO RECIPE
I love these sourdough posts. Are all of these in your new book?
Thank you! Sourdough is my favorite thing to make 🙂
I have updated versions of the crackers, pancakes and waffles in the book and a recipe for tortillas that isn’t on my blog (you can make the dough ahead for those and then refrigerate it). I came up with the cakes, pizza and pitas after I sent in my manuscript. Maybe the next book 😉 Those discard recipes are in addition to new sourdough recipes: sticky buns, pizza (not with discard, just all leaven), graham crackers and brownies. And if you have preordered the book, I have a bonus recipe download of six recipes not in the book or on the blog. One of those is whole wheat bread with discard. You can find out about that bonus bundle here if you like: https://zerowastechef.com/2021/03/09/bonus-recipe-bundle/
~ Anne-Marie
OK thanks for the info!
My pleasure!
Could we have the recipe for the crackers please?
Hi Goldie. You can find that here: https://zerowastechef.com/2015/11/18/sourdough-crackers-2-0/
What good ideas!
Thank you Dorothy!
~ Anne-Marie
so useful, thank you.