How to Use Sourdough Discard

Do you love baking with sourdough but hate tossing out the discard? Good news — use your excess sourdough to bake delicious new discard recipes and reduce kitchen waste. Sourdough discard, often overlooked, is a versatile ingredient in baking. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced baker, use these sourdough discard tips to enhance your baking.

Demystifying sourdough discard

Sourdough is a fermented mixture of water and flour that produces natural yeast. Recipes made with sourdough rise naturally. Using sourdough discard in your weekly meal planning minimizes kitchen waste and enriches baked goods with an unusually tangy flavor.

The sourdough starter is the original fermented amount of water and flour, and baking with sourdough requires feeding the starter regularly with additional flour and water. However, it grows if you don’t remove some of the starter each time you feed it. So if you don’t bake regularly each time you remove some, you will have an excess of sourdough starter.

Ways to use sourdough discard

This flavorful fermented mixture adds depth and tang to various recipes. Far from being just waste, it offers many possibilities for creating new sourdough discard recipes. These seven baking tips teach you to make the most of your sourdough discard.

Room temperature discard

For best baking results, use only when it is at room temperature. Cold and straight from the fridge may slow the fermentation process and negatively impact the rise of your baked goods. Allowing it to come to room temperature lets it blend more seamlessly with other ingredients, helping to create a consistent texture and flavor in your bakes.

Liquid consistency with whole wheat flour

When baking with whole wheat flour in your recipes, you’ll need to use a more liquid sourdough discard. Whole wheat flour absorbs more moisture, and the thinner discard helps maintain moisture in your dough. This will help you avoid a dry finished product.

Tangy flavor profile

Sourdough discard gives baking a distinct tangy flavor that is more pronounced than when you use a regular starter. This characteristic sourness adds a unique depth to baked goods, making them stand out with a gourmet twist. Remember to pair these kinds of recipes with complementary flavors, such as garlic, rosemary or thyme.

Michelle Price of Honest and Truly uses this leftover ingredient just for the tang. “I use it in many other recipes where it adds a fabulous tang that makes them even more delicious,” she explains. “I love to use it in everything from chocolate chip cookies to pizza dough to brownies.”

Sourdough discard in regular recipes

Don’t limit your sourdough discard to just bread. It’s a versatile addition to many recipes, from sourdough discard biscuits, pancakes and waffles to crackers and pizza dough. Plan to experiment with adding it in different recipes to create delicious new recipes, just like Michelle Price does.

Storage ideas

When removing the discard from the original starter, you may not want to bake with it immediately. Instead of throwing it out, store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week. You may also freeze your discard in small amounts for convenience in future baking.

Proper storage ensures your discard remains fresh and safe to use. If you don’t own a freezer, consider dehydrating the starter. Doing so transforms it into a food with a long shelf life. Simply add spring water — not tap water — to rehydrate it when you want to bake.

Time to throw it away

Just like baking ingredients that are past their use-by dates, there are signs that say it is time to toss your discard. These include:

• A pink or orange tint
• A strong and unpleasant smell
• Visible mold

Final thoughts

Baking with sourdough discard takes patience and practice. Hopefully, you’ve learned some ways to use it in current recipes or have garnered ideas on where to look for new ways to use it. I’m confident that once you get the hang of it, it will become a signature ingredient in your kitchen.

Portions of this article originally appeared on Food Drink Life.