15 Easy Ways To Use Food Scraps For New Meals

Sustainability

Apr 10

Various food scraps like a lemon peel, half of an onion and its peel, and

How are we doing out there? It’s me, Sarah and wow have these last few weeks been a doozy. But Lemon Tribe, we’ve been preparing for this! We’ve been training our whole lives to make lemonade, lemon bars, lemon meringues and everything good and lemon-filled out of a whole bunch of sour lemons. Now is our time to rise to the occasion, to double down on eating healthy, meditating, and spreading positivity and light. I, as I’m sure you have as well, have been really upping my cooking game (and my dishwasher game too I suppose).

With Whole Foods delivery times as a guessing game, sometimes I don’t have all the ingredients I’d love to have so I’ve gotten creative making sure I’m using all parts of my food to really make our grocery shopping go further. This is also a great way to increase sustainability, not to mention find some new recipes as well! Here are a few ways I’ve been using food scraps to make new meals.

15 Easy Uses for Food Scraps

Turn Chicken Bones into Bone Broth: Your grandmother, your friends, and Well & Good have told you how great bone broth is for you. Full of collagen and nutrients, sip on it to promote gut health and increase digestive function. If you make a roast chicken, don’t throw those bones away! Get more mileage with bone broth.
- Bone Broth Recipe:
  - Take your chicken carcass and put it in a slow cooker or a large pot with lid and fill with filtered water, 1-2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and anything else you’d like.
  - I usually add in turmeric, ginger, celery, carrots, and spices. Simmer for six hours or cook on low for 12 hours.
  - You can use cupcake tins to freeze these in single-sized portions.
Use Vegetable Scraps for Veggie Broth: Similar to the bone broth, all of the pieces of fruits and veggies you’d usually throw away are actually packed with nutrients. These make a delicious and super nutritious soup that you can make once a week or every other week depending on your fruit/veggie consumption. Just be careful as some pits and skins can be dangerous so check before you throw it in.
- Veggie Broth Recipe:
  - Take a freezer bag and place in your scraps throughout the week and put back into the freezer, my current bag has parsley and kale stalks, lemon rinds, sweet potato skins, and onion skins.
  - Use the same method as the bone broth recipe but no need to add in any additional veggies.
  - Stays good in the fridge for about a week or the freezer for 6 months.
Use Broccoli Stalks to Make Crispy Broccoli Chips: Oh broccoli, how we love you. You’re packed with Vitamin A, Vitamin C, fiber, potassium, and Vitamin K and good for nearly all our systems. But your stalks to date have been useless. Well not anymore! These broccoli chips make use of the stalks to get more out of your broccoli.
- Broccoli Chips Recipe:
  - Cut the broccoli stalks from the broccoli heads after rinsing
  - Using a peeler, peel the stalks as the outer layer is quite chewy, one level of peel should be fine
  - Cut the broccoli stalk into “chip” sized pieces and toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, and paprika (or any other spices you’d like)
  - Preheat oven to 375 and roast the broccoli 18-20 minutes or until crisp
  - Serve warm with hummus or another dip
Use Citrus Zest for Gourmet Salts: I love citrus fruit and hate throwing away the skins. I’ve recently found that drying them out and tossing them with some salt makes an amazing blend that gives them new life. Here’s the super simple recipe.
- Citrus Gourmet Salt Recipe:
  - Before you cut into your lemon, lime or orange, take a zester and zest the whole thing into a small container
  - You can keep the container in the fridge for up to a week and toss the zest into dishes to spice up rice, a meat rub, or toast
  - You can also leave the zest out to dry for about a week or dry out in the oven on the lowest setting for a few hours
  - Combine this dried zest with salt for a fun gourmet spice and feel free to add in herbs as well. Some of my favorites include:
    - Lime and Chipotle Salt
    - Lemon and Rosemary Salt
    - Orange and Basil Salt
Upgrade Your Pan Butter With Frozen Herb Butter: There is nothing I hate more than my herbs wilting sadly in my fridge. Sometimes, I just can’t use them up fast enough. This is such an easy way to ensure they stay fresh and also elevate future dishes.
- Frozen Herb Butter Recipe:
  - Take fresh herbs and ensure they are washed and properly cut
  - Melt butter, ghee, olive oil or other oil of your choice in a bowl in 15 second increments
  - Pour melted butter into ice trays and place herbs (single or combo) into each ice tray and freeze
  - Take out the next time you need to coat your pan with butter/oil for fish, pasta, or another dish to give it great flavor
Sautee Radish Greens For a Side Upgrade: Roasted radishes are one of my favorite easy sides to make, they taste just like potatoes and are so much healthier for you. But my pink radishes usually have their stems and leaves attached that I throw out. Not anymore. I learned that those radish greens can be used like kale or arugula and have a ton of benefits - actually far exceeding the benefits of the roots itself including iron, folic acid, calcium, vitamin C and more. You can do this with carrot, beet, and turnip leaves too.
- Sauteed Radish Greens Recipe:
  - Wash radishes and greens well, soaking the greens in water for at least 60 seconds and ensuring the leaves are cleaned
  - Pick the leaves off and dry them with a towel
  - Coat a pan with oil of your choice and add in some minced garlic or garlic powder, salt, and pepper
  - Throw radish greens into pan and wait till wilted, about 1 minute on medium heat
  - Plate and serve!
Use Hardened Bread for Croutons: This one is an old trick from my mom but one I forgot until recently. When bread starts to harden, don’t throw it out! It’ll make some delicious croutons.
- Bread Croutons:
  - Slice hardened bread into crouton sized pieces
  - Coat a pan with olive oil and place bread crumbs on pan, coating them with a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh garlic, oregano, and cheese (or dairy free cheese)
  - Bake in the oven on 350 for 20-30 minutes or until crispy
Make Red Wine Vinegar from Red Wine: If you drank a bottle you didn’t love (or in this case Nick drank a bottle he didn’t love) don’t pour it down the drain! You can turn it into red wine vinegar you can use in future recipes. This isn’t super simple but fun to try.
- Red Wine Vinegar Recipe:
  - Pour wine into a glass jar, put the lid on and shake well to aerate
  - Remove lid and add filtered water until the jar is about 3/4 full
  - Add in apple cider vinegar and cover with cheese cloth with a rubber band to secure it, there’s many alternatives to cheese cloth too if you don’t have
  - Leave the jar in a dark place for 3 to 4 weeks, checking every so often to see the vinegar growing on the surface (any mold and throw out and start again)
  - After two months, it should be ready to use
Save Overcooked Grains To Make Tortillas: Nick and I have never really gotten into lentils but when I couldn’t find rice, we opted for a bag of red split lentils. Let’s just say my first attempt at cooking them ended in a large mushy mess. Not wanting to throw them away, I learned that tortillas are pretty easy to make from any overcooked grain. Here’s how to do the lentils (and the others are simple enough to google:
- Split Red Lentil Tortillas Recipe:
  - Blend your overcooked lentils with a bit of water in a high speed blender until you have a fluffy batter
  - Heat oil on a pan and add 1/4 cup batter to the pan, spreading it into about a 6 inch circle on medium heat 1-1/2 minutes per side
  - That’s it! If you haven’t overcooked your lentils, you can soak them for 12 hours with two cups of water and a bit of salt and then do the above steps
Pickle Veggies That Are Going Bad: Knowing how to pickle can really add to your fridge with pickled onions, radishes, and broccoli you can spice up dishes and have a great snack If you know you won’t be able to use all your veggies or they’re starting to go bad, use this easy pickle recipe:
- Pickled Veggies Recipe:
  - Take a clean glass jar that has an airtight lid and put whatever veggies you want to pickle, sliced as you’d like in the jar
  - Bring 1 cup of water, 1 cup of vinegar (any white vinegar is fine like apple cider, white balsamic, or champagne), 2 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of sugar to a boil until they’re dissolved
  - Pour the brine over the veggies, let slightly cool and add in any other spices you want (red pepper flakes for spice, peppercorns for a deli feel, etc.)
  - Put top on and refrigerate for a week before trying
Save Your Bean Juice to Make Aioli: You should always save the juice from your can of beans. Black bean or chickpea juice are great to add flavor to cooking liquid instead of water or broth. But there’s more you can do. Here is a great recipe with chickpea juice.
- Aquafaba Aioli:
  - Combine 3 tablespoons chickpea juice (aquafaba), 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar, 1/2 teaspoon of dijon mustard, and salt using an immersion blender/nutribullet/any other blending thing you have one hand
  - Add in 1 cup of oil incredible slowly, if you add it in too fast it won’t work. Make sure it’s fully combined before adding more until all is adding in. It will eventually turn thick
  - Add in 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and either 2 tablespoons of finely minced garlic or a teaspoon of garlic powder and store in fridge for a week
Keep Those Strawberry Tops to Make Homemade Syrup: We just bought a bunch of delicious looking strawberries and are making brownies with them but I really don’t want to throw away the tops. Enter this delicious strawberry syrup recipe that I’ll be making to pour on all the gluten free pancakes.
- Strawberry Stem Syrup Recipe:
  - Combine your strawberry tops with 1/2 cup coconut sugar and juice from 1/2 lemon in a bowl
  - Cover and allow to combine in the fridge for at least 6 hours or up to a day
  - Add all the contents into a blender and strain and there you have your syrup!
Use Overripe Tomatoes for Tomato Sauce: This is a simple and delicious one, tomato sauce isn’t super easy to find right now but tomatoes are! Take them and make this easy sauce to put on pasta, pizza, or zucchini pizza bites (our personal favorite right now):
- Simple Tomato Sauce Recipe:
  - Chop tomatoes up into small pieces and place on pan with olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and onions if you have available
  - Roast on 300 for 2 hours, flipping occasionally and then on 400 for 20 minutes
  - Remove from pan and add to food processor or blend by hand with fresh basil until it resembles tomato sauce
  - Store in the fridge for up to a week or the freezer for 6 months
Use Overripe Fruit for Fruit Popsicles: When you see fruit that’s too ripe to eat, don’t throw it out! Throw it in your freezer and keep a bag of all the overripe fruit for when you’re in the mood for popsicles:
- Fruit Popsicles:
  - Take overripe fruit bag and place all fruit in the blender until fully combined, add sugar if you wish but it shouldn’t be necessary
  - Pour mixture into popsicle molds, ice molds, or even shot glasses to get that popsicle feel. You can use popsicle sticks or another alternative and place in each mold
  - Put in the freezer and take out individually when you want a delicious treat!
Use Pickle Juice for a Marinade: How I love pickles but I’m not such a fan of the juice. Nick and I figured out a few years ago that pickle juice makes a delicious marinade for meats, chicken specifically.
- Pickle-Brined Baked Chicken:
  - Take a reusable stasher bag and place pickle juice, salt, pepper, and any other spices you wish in the bag and shake it up
  - Place chicken tenders (or meat of your choice) in the bag and let marinate for 20 minutes to 6 hours
  - Bake on 350 until chicken is fully cooked