5 tips to Avoid Food Waste and Reduce Food Footprint

When we first started cooking together, food waste was our biggest issue. We were living in two different flats and working office jobs. The odd drink with our coworkers occasionally popped up last minute. Sometimes, we were just lazy.

Now, working from home definitely gave us a major help, but also did learning how to adapt our dishes to the ingredients we had in the fridge, and we feel like sharing our dirty little secrets here. Cut on food waste is easier than you might think if you know how to do that. Even reducing a little bit might make a major difference!

Oddbox Veggies

So at this point you know we’re very loyal to our weekly Oddbox, perhaps because we mention it in every single post. In our defence, it’s hard to feel anything but love for a box that gets delivered overnight to your door and makes you feel like it’s Christmas every week.

This section is more of a general nationwide waste advice, rather than household food waste, but we feel it still applies to the bigger picture.

For those of you that don’t live in London, Oddbox is a delivery service that helps farmers and local producers to tackle food waste. Every week (or every other week, depending on the frequency you pick), you get a lovely box of veggies and fruit (or just veggies, or just fruit) that would’ve otherwise being wasted because of weird sizes, skin marks, surplus etc.

Other than helping local farmers and avoid food waste, this gives a major boost to food creativity – by getting a bunch of veggies that you would never buy otherwise, you’ll be challenged in finding new ways to cook them. If there’s something you don’t like (we realised after three weeks of aubergines that we’re just not the biggest fans) you can always tick them out and get a substitute instead.

Sure we do buy some stuff at the shop still, mostly because I can’t personally survive without having tomatoes in the fridge for more than 2 days. However, by getting veggies from Oddbox we have fresh produce that beats any Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference products.

There are alternatives to Oddbox in London that we haven’t tried, such as Abel & Cole* or Riverford, and there are definitely equivalents in the US – it’s worth keeping an eye on it and consider a subscription to one of those.

This is not an ad stunt, but you’ll get a £5 off your first box if you order through our referral link* and we get a £5 our next one – you have no excuse to not try it now!

All the Other Veggies

One nice trick we can share and it’s about spring onions/scallions: go and buy your nice bunch, even a big one. Don’t worry about waste in this case, because when you’re home you can just wash it and put in a nice glass full of water and leave it there. That’s it. The spring onions will continue to grow, and when you cut them, just put them back in the glass – they’re gonna grow back in a few days and you can use them again. Just change the water every day and make sure to get rid of any particularly smelly bit at the bottom (we’ll show you how down here).

Going back to the rest of our veggies, if you’re now in love with Oddbox as much as we are and don’t want to waste those same veggies that you helped saving, there’s no big trick: plan your meals in advance.

If you don’t have the chance to become an Oddboxer, best thing is to buy local so at least you know that your tomatoes didn’t travel 10 days before you bought them and it gives you a tiny bit of extra time.

At the end of the day, all you can do is to learn to know your veggies and plan accordingly. Always prioritise salad leaves and spinach because those are gonna leave you very very soon. Asparagus as well are best eaten the day you buy them, the next day maximum. If you can get Romaine heads over bagged leaves, you’ll have more time before they go bad. Celery and cabbage are probably gonna live longer than you, so don’t worry too much about them.

Some veggies you can freeze, some of them eeeh, not such a good idea. Mushrooms and spinach can go in the freezer, salad cannot. Just quickly google it and you’re definitely gonna find someone that tried it before. From my experience, I can tell you that freezing carrots is not great.

And if in doubt, as my mom always says, just smell it. Your nose will know.

The what-was-left recipes to avoid food waste

The concept of the I-used-what-was-left-in-the-fridge-pasta is something that every Italian has encountered before. And I believe that egg fried rice is nothing but the Asian version of it, and we had our version of it.

Sometimes, you can just throw everything in a muffin pot, as I did when I was trying to find a way to use one last lonely courgette and we got these saffron muffins.

Sometimes, it’s gonna be a pasta sauce, such as my beloved spinach and walnut pesto. What has now become one of my staples, is nothing more than me back at uni trying to save a 300g bag of spinach from the bin. With a single bag of spinach you get a lot of pesto, so you can freeze it and have it ready to go as a last-minute meal.

It can also be an amazing lasagna – we most recently had a courgette and mushroom lasagna that not only was fucking delicious but it also got us to save one courgette, a bunch of mushrooms, and half a litre of soy milk all in one go.

The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes you just have to try. In the meantime, we’re here to help you so no worries.

Herbs

First things first: stock on herbs. Not only dried herbs, but also bay leaves, fresh coriander, fresh parsley, fresh thyme. These are all gonna make a major difference when it comes to taste and you’ll come and thank us later.

I do get that unless you’re Jake, a 30g bunch of coriander might be a bit too much to use in a couple of days. So our advice is: take it out of that filthy plastic bag it came in, wash it thoroughly, pat it dry with a paper towel, and store it in a dry paper towel in the fridge. This will keep it fresh and ready to use for at least 7-10 days. I must say that I tried to freeze it but it didn’t come out too well when I used it. Some say that it might be a good idea to chop it before freezing and just use it when needed.

When it comes to parsley though, it’s a whole different story. Parsley does indeed freeze well, and I find life-changing having it whenever I need. So the process is the same as for coriander: wash it thoroughly, pat it dry, and store in the fridge. If you know already you won’t use all of it, put it directly in the freezer inside of an airtight plastic bag. When you need it, just take it out, chop it while frozen, and leave it rest for a bit on a paper towel. This will help get all the extra moisture out.

Thyme is probably the best fresh herb to freeze. Being less leafy than coriander and parsley, all you have to do is – you guessed it – wash it, pat it dry, wrap it in a dry paper towel and put it in an airtight bag either in the fridge or the freezer. When you’re ready to use it, just take it out.

Last Thoughts on Food Waste

I could go on forever but we don’t want this to turn into an essay.

If you happen to have some food waste, don’t beat yourself too much: it happens, to everyone. It’s a learning process and it took us months to get to the point where we have an empty fridge and nothing to cook rather than a bunch of food we’ll have to throw away.

One thing we might add is to plan a few backup dishes if you’re gonna buy a new ingredient you don’t usually have in your pantry. For us, that ingredient was Greek yoghurt. We bought it for a Middle-Eastern inspired chicken dish but then it just sat in the freezer for a few days and I had no clue what to use it for, since we’re not really yoghurt fans. So here’s a few alternatives:

• Apple cake
• Pound cake with Greek yoghurt (it gives it a lovely moisture and soft texture)
• Granola with yoghurt, honey, and blueberries
• Chicken marinades
• Tzatziki sauce

It takes practice, but as for everything else, the more you practice, the better you get. And for the love of God, use your freezer please.