Making up 40% of bins, food waste is a huge waste of resources, is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and could be costing your household $3,800 a year! There are many reasons for reducing the amount of food ending up in landfill and the best way to do it is to simply do what it was made for - eat it! So, here’s 14 food waste recipes…

Did you know that food waste makes up about 40% of Australia’s household garbage bins? And it is estimated to cost each household $3,800 worth of groceries a year, with one in five shopping bags ending up in the bin.

Other astounding food waste facts from OzHarvest, an Australian food rescue organisation, are that:

• almost half of all fruit and vegetables produced is wasted,

• one third of all food produced is lost or wasted –around 1.3 billion tonnes of food –costing the global economy close to $940 billion each year,

• if one quarter of the food currently lost or wasted could be saved, it would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people,

• throwing away one burger wastes the same amount of water as a 90-minute shower,

• 8% of greenhouse gases heating the planet are caused by food waste, and

• if food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the United States and China.

This shows how food waste not only costs the global economy and individual households large sums of money, but it is also a leading cause of climate change.

And this is why food should never be wasted and thrown out if at all possible and if it does need to be discarded, it should be composted and not sent to landfill, where it will end up emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, if at all possible.

We share how to compost no matter your housing situation, even if you live in an apartment in and where to compost your food scraps if home composting is not going to happen in previous articles.

And we share how we ate food waste for an entire month and all the ways in which food can be saved from going to waste in this article: Eating (Mostly) Only Food Waste for a Month: 10 Ways I Saved Food and we explain what best-before dates and use-by dates actually mean and who decides when food is no longer fit for consumption in this article Can Food Past Its Best-Before Date Be Eaten?: What Do Expiry Dates Really Mean?

But this article is about saving food from being waste by turning it into a delicious meal, treat, snack, or dip!

Can you revive it?

Firstly, ask yourself whether you can revive the food and just use it as you normally would.

Vegetables can often be revived by giving them some water. Place them in a damp tea towel or in a glass or vase of water like you would with flowers, or completely submerge them in water in a glass jar.

Try placing things like loose spinach leaves and zucchinis under a damp tea towel, standing broccoli, kale, and other bunches of leaves in water, and placing carrots in a glass jar and filling it with water and putting them back in the fridge for a day. They should harden or perk up after becoming rehydrated.

You can read more on how to store food so it lasts as long as possible and none of it is wasted here: Plastic-Free Fridge & Freezer: How To Store Food Without Plastic.

Weirdly, stale bread can also be revived by wetting it! You can revive bread by:
1. Wet the bread under running water - get the crust properly wet but try not to get the cut side too wet (if there is one)
2. Put it in an oven set to 150°C for about 7 min or up to 12 min of its very wet (or you get the inside wet)

This makes a hard loaf of bread as new again! It should come out moist on the inside and have a crackly crust on the outside.

If food is mouldy, definitely do not eat the mouldy bits! Is it safe to just cut off the mouldy bits and eat the rest? According to the CSIRO, “some mouldy foods should simply be discarded (ideally, to compost)”, but “others you can salvage and use the unaffected parts without exposing yourself to a health risk”.

The research agency warns that foods with a high moisture content such as soft fruit and vegetables, pastes/sauces, and soft cheeses and porous foods such as bread and cakes can have invisible hyphae growing below the surface and producing mycotoxins. It recommends discarding all of these types of foods if you see mould on the surface.

However, it says that foods with a dense structure such as hard cheese and carrots can be saved and consumed with little risk as this food is less likely to have extensive hyphal growth away from the visible mycelium. It recommends cutting the mycelium away to a centimetre or two depth.

14 Ways To Eat Food Instead Of Wasting It

If you can’t revive it to its former glory but it is still safe to eat, find a recipe to use it in, for instance use bananas that are past their prime for smoothies, banana bread or nice cream.

If it’s a part of a vegetable you don’t normally eat, check if you can actually eat it and find out how to cook it.

If it is something you usually compost like onion and garlic skins, lemon or orange rind, and banana peels or send down the drain like the water you boil chickpeas in, stop and think before discarding it and find a way to use it.

Here’s a heap of recipes we’ve tried that use food that would normally not be eaten or discarded:

1. Aquafaba meringues and mayonnaise

Did you know you can make meringues from the leftover cooking liquid after cooking dry chickpeas? It’s called Aquafaba and can also be used to make vegan mayonnaise and as an egg replacement in loads of recipes. 

Keep the liquid you’ve cooked your dried chickpeas in (not the liquid you soaked them in; it doesn’t work – I’ve tried!) or the liquid from canned chickpeas and use it to make one of the below recipes or in your cooking instead of egg. You can freeze it until you have time to or want to use it.

Aquafaba meringues (recipe from SBS Food)

• 160 ml (1 can) aquafaba (chickpea liquid)

• 1 cup caster or brown sugar

1. Whisk the chickpea liquid with an electric mixer for 15 minutes or until soft peaks form

2. Then, whisking constantly, gradually add sugar and whisk until the mixture is thick and firm

3. Bake at 120ºC for about 1.5 hours

Aquafaba mayonnaise (recipe from Minimalist Baker)

• 0.25 cup aquafaba (chickpea liquid)

• 0.25 tsp ground mustard

• 0.25 tsp sea salt

• 1.5 tsp apple cider vinegar

• 1 tbsp brown rice syrup (or sub stevia to taste, cane sugar, or maple syrup)

• 0.75-1 cup sunflower oil* (or avocado oil) 

1. Using an immersion blender, blend the aquafaba with the ground mustard, sea salt, apple cider vinegar, and brown rice syrup on high for 30 seconds until frothy

2. Slowly add the oil over 1-2 minutes while blending

3. Move the immersion blender up and down to incorporate a little air toward the end and if it's looking too thin, add more oil

4. Add more sweetener of choice, vinegar, salt, or ground mustard if needed

2. Vegetable stock crackers

You can not only use kitchen scraps to make vegetable stock, you can then use them to make crackers after you’ve used them to make the stock! 

We share how to make your own vegetable stock from frozen vegetable scraps here and we share how to make crackers from the leftovers below.

Crackers made from veggie scraps (@greenapartmentproject's recipe)

• 1.5 cups boiled vegetable scraps

• 0.5 cup linseed

• 3 tbsp chia seeds

• 1 cup almond meal

• Salt and spices to taste

1. Blitz about 1.5 cups of the boiled veg leftover after making homemade vegetable stock after draining it well

2. Soak 0.5 cup linseed and 3 tbsp chia seeds for 1 hour

3. Mix veg and soaked seeds with 1 cup almond meal

4. Add salt and spices as desired

5. Spread 2 mm thin and bake for 30 min at 180°C

6. Cut and rebake for a further 20 min

3. Carrot Greens Pesto or Chimichurri

Pesto can be made with many leaves, but one you would not normally consider using is carrot top greens. Don't waste the tops of your carrots, use them to make a delicious pesto. Great on bread or with pasta, or as a dip!

You can also use them to make chimichurri sauce, which makes sandwiches, salads, meat or fish, and vegetables like carrots scrumptious.

Carrot Top Pesto (Simply Recipes' recipe)

• 1 cup carrot top greens

• 1 cup baby spinach

• 1 garlic clove

• 0.5 cup roasted unsalted cashews

• 0.5 tsp salt

• 0.25 tsp pepper

• 0.5 cup olive oil

1. Blitz the carrot top leaves in a food processor with the baby spinach, garlic, cashews, salt, and pepper

2. Then, slowly add around half a cup of olive oil

3. Blend until smooth

Carrot Top Chimichurri (Love and Lemons’ recipe)

• 1 cup carrot greens

• 2 tsp dried oregano

• 0.25 tsp cumin

• 1 tsp ground sweet paprika

• 0.5 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

• 1 garlic clove

• 1 tsp salt

• Pinch of pepper

• 0.25 cup white wine vinegar

• 0.25 cup olive oil

1. Finely chop carrot greens and add all of the dried spices and garlic (minced)

2. Stir in the vinegar and olive oil

3. Adjust seasoning to taste

4. Croutons and bread crumbs from hard bread

Leftover stale bread that’s gone hard? Don't chuck it! Make homemade croutons! Or turn it into bread crumbs you can use for crumbing meat or vegetables.

For bread crumbs, simply tear the bread into chunks and process in a food processor until the chunks become crumbs (you don’t have to, but you can dry them in the oven so that they keep better and for more crispiness) and for croutons to add some crunch factor to soups and salads, simply follow these easy steps:

1. Cut the bread into small bite-sized squares or whatever shape you want

2. Place on an oven tray in a single layer

3. Drizzle olive oil all over them or cover them in butter

4. Sprinkle with salt (you can add garlic, herbs, or parmesan if you want)

5. Bake at 190°C for 5 min

6. Toss and stir

7. Bake for another 5 min or until done to your liking

5. Turning overripe bananas into pancakes, ice cream, and bacon

Blackening bananas can be used in many ways. We generally throw them in the freezer and use them to make vegan banana bread when we’re in a baking mood. This and adding them to a smoothie are probably the most well-known use for bananas past their prime, but there are many more ways they can be enjoyed, including making a healthy ice-cream substitute, nice cream, and pancakes or French toast to put it on! 

And did you know you can use banana peels to make cakes and a vegan bacon substitute? We’re yet to try this, but a recipe exists…

Nice Cream

• 4 ripe bananas cut into chunks

• 3-4 tbsp milk (plant-based for a vegan version)

1. Place the banana chunks in the freezer on a flat tray, covering well, and leave to freeze for at least an hour or until frozen through

2. Whizz the bananas in a food processor until smooth and add milk

3. Serve with toppings of choice

Banana Peel Bacon (Recipe by It Doesn’t Taste Like Chicken)

• Peels from two very ripe bananas – lots of brown spots!

• 3 tbsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp maple syrup

• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika

• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

• 1 tbsp oil

1. Tear banana peels into about strips

2. Use a spoon to lightly scrape off the white inside part of the banana peel, leaving just the peel

3. Mix the soy sauce, maple syrup, smoked paprika, and garlic powder together

4. Marinade the banana peels in the mixture for a minimum of 10 minutes

5. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the peels when hot and fry for a few minutes on each side until they are golden and bubble up a little

6. Remove from pan, drain, and let cool to get crispier

6. Things to do with celery leaves

Did you know you can eat celery leaves? You can actually eat most parts of most vegetables. Don’t let the tops and ends go to waste!

When cutting up some celery for a snack at work one day I started wondering what I could do with the leaves. A quick Ecosia search revealed I can do lots of things with them, including:

• use them as leaves in a salad,

• make pesto,

• make celery salt,

• add them to soup, stir fry and stews,

• use them as a fresh herb, or

• dry them to use as a herb. 

I ended up making some rice paper rolls and including them in them as fresh leaves. They tasted great!

7. Nut milk pulp cookies

Don't waste the leftover pulp from straining plant milk! You can use it to make nut pulp cookies, energy bites, crackers, or fruit crumble.

You don't have to use it immediately if you’re pressed for time; you can freeze it for later use. 

I use it to make cookies. Milk and cookies. Name a more iconic duo! Recipe below.

Nut milk cookies (The Daily Greens Co's recipe)

• 1 cup almond pulp

• 1 cup plain flour

• 0.75 cup raw sugar

• 0.75 cup softened butter, coconut oil or dairy free butter

• 2 tbsp almond or peanut butter

• 1 tsp bi carb

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 0.5 tsp cinnamon

1. Mix the sugar and butter or coconut oil

2. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until combined

3. Make into small balls, place them on a greased tray, and flatten them

4. Bake at 180°C for 15 to 20 minutes

8. Green smoothie bombs

Got Kale or spinach or another leaf that you usually pop in your smoothies that is looking sorry for itself? Turn it into frozen green smoothie bombs before it goes bad.

Keep them in the freezer and just add them to your smoothies before blitzing.

Simply, blend it up with some water and pour into an ice cube tray or silicone moulds. Once frozen, you can pop them out and store in a container or glass jar in the freezer.

If you don’t have a silicone ice cube tray, they are super easy to find second hand in op shops. And, they are not only useful for making ice cubes and green smoothie bombs; they can also help save other food stuffs from being binned…

9. Herb and oil and tomato paste cubes

Ice cube trays and silicone moulds can also be used to rescue excess herbs and tomato paste.

With leftover tomato paste, you just spoon it into the moulds and freeze it in them in the freezer. Once frozen they can be stored in any container in the freezer and removed and used as needed.

With excess herbs, chop them up finely and divide it up between the indents in the tray, filling them up half way. Then cover in olive oil, filling to just below the top, and freeze. Works best with tough hardier herbs such as rosemary, sage, thyme, and oregano. 

They can be used as the oil when cooking to infuse it with the taste of the particular herb, for instance in the frying pan when frying onions and garlic for a dish.

10. Uses for citrus peel 

What can citrus peel from lemons and oranges be used for? It has many edible and non-edible uses, including:

• citrus peel and white vinegar all-purpose cleaner (you’ll find all our cleaning with white vinegar recipes here),

• candied peel,

• preserved lemons,

• fire starters,

• marmalade,

• body scrub,

• homemade lemon liqueur,

• honey citron tea,

• citrus salt, and

• frozen lemon zest.

11. Coffee grounds exfoliating scrub 

You can’t eat coffee grounds but you can soak up its goodness through your skin! Save up your used coffee grounds and use them to make an exfoliating body scrub.

Most of the ingredients you should be able to get from a bulk store, or in paper packaging or glass packaging. Some you can DIY, such as vanilla essence, but this takes a while to be ready to use, so you’ll want it in your kitchen cupboard ready to go.

There are loads of recipes for DIY exfoliating body scrubs online – you can use used coffee grounds and brown sugar or just used coffee grounds or just brown sugar. We share three of our favourites in this blog post.

12. Overripe Avocado face or hair mask

Peel off the skin and your avo is black underneath? When you’ve stopped crying, mush it into a face mask instead. No longer edible but you can still smash it on your face.

Or hair – you can also use it to make a hair mask. 

Revive dry skin with this off avocado face mask:

Overripe Avocado Face Mask 1 (recipe by Eat By Chloe)

• 1 overripe avocado

• 1 ripe banana

• 1 tsp olive oil or jojoba oil

• 1 tsp of orange juice or lemon juice

1. Combine all the ingredients and mash by hand or blitz in a food processor

2. Apply to clean, dry skin

3. Leave mask on for 10-15 minutes, then rinse off

Overripe Avocado Face Mask 2 (recipe by Natural Beauty Tips)

• 1 overripe avocado

• 1 tbsp Honey

1. Mash the avocado into a creamy pulp in a bowl

2. Add the honey and stir the mixture until it turns into a paste

3. Apply to skin and leave on for 10-15 minutes, then rinse off

13. Thursday Night Soups

Making a soup using whatever food you have leftover in the fridge that might go to waste is a great way to avoid food waste. Max Wong shared how best to go about this with Wise Bread:

1. Get all your leftovers out to see what you have – leftover cooked pasta (with or without sauce), meats, cooked beans, and veggies are all perfect for soup

2. See what you have to stretch it out with if you don’t have enough leftovers to make a filling soup – rice, pearl barley, and noodles all work well

3. If adding meat, chop it into small bits and add it to a big soup pot with some stock

4. Sauté any raw vegetables with some onions and garlic in some butter or oil

5. Add hard ingredients like carrots to the soup before adding softer ingredients like tomatoes to stop it from getting too mushy

6. Add fresh herbs to the soup about 15 minutes before serving

7. If adding, add pre-cooked pasta last to keep it from breaking down completely

8. If the ingredients do get too mushy, just puree the cooked soup

9. If the soup is too thin, use potatoes (baked, roasted, or mashed), cooked rice, or cooked cauliflower to thicken

14. Leftover Vegetable Pasta or Pizza on a Homemade Base

Two other good ways to use up random veg leftover at the end of the week – and to avoid plastic wrapped bases and frozen pizzas – is to use it to make a plastic-free vegetable pasta or pizza.

Cook up the produce and add to cooked pasta with or without a sauce or use it to top a pizza.

Yeast-Free Homemade pizza bases (BBC Good Food's recipe)

• 350 g flour

• 2.75 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 tbsp oil

• 170 ml water

1. Mix the dry ingredients and then add the oil and water, stirring until it forms a ball

2. Knead on a floured surface for 3 to 4 mins, roll into two balls, and then flatten out

3. Add toppings and bake at 180°C for 15 min

We’ll add more recipes as we come across them! In the meantime, let us know if there are any recipes you swear by for reducing food waste that we should add in the comments.

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