Cutting down on food waste saves you money as well as benefitting the environment. Here are some easy tips to minimise your kitchen’s waste.

Some simple and effective ways to reduce waste in your kitchen:

  • Use a shopping list and stick to it: don’t buy anything just to have it languish in the fridge until it’s only good for the bin.
  • Make one dinner each week a “use-it-up” meal based solely on leftovers and other food that might otherwise get overlooked. Some of our food styling team’s most inventive and delicious meals have been the result of this habit!
  • Don’t be put off by flawed fruits or vegetables. Trim away imperfections if they bother you, and use the rest. Even over-ripe or wilted produce can be whizzed into a soup, juice or smoothie, and don’t forget that over-ripe bananas make the best banana bread!

Reduce waste with smoothies Easy Food

  • Use every bit of food whenever possible. Leave skins on cucumbers, carrots and potatoes, cook broccoli stems along with the florets and so on. Many of these off-cuts carry added nutrients.
  • Save vegetable trimmings in a bag in the freezer. When the bag gets full, make vegetable stock. Freeze this in individual portions and use as needed.
  • Work your leftovers! Freeze extra portions of pasta bakes, casseroles, soups and stews for another day’s minimum-effort lunch or dinner… or discover the joys of “dinner for breakfast.” 
  • Hoard Parmesan rinds and add them to soups and stews for a flavour boost. Alternatively, there’s an even better use for them: Parmesan broth. It’s a simple idea, but an easy way to add flavour to a myriad of dishes. There’s an approach to food known as “nose-to-tail” eating, meaning that every part of a slaughtered animal deserves to be used, and this is the cheese version of that — rind-to-point! Sub it in for part of the stock in a simple risotto focusing on the fantastic umami flavour of Parmesan.