50+ Ideas to Keep Us from Wasting Food
February 22, 2008 by Karen Weideman
Filed under food, frugal friday, frugal living, top 50
At one time or another, we’re all going to have excess food, whether it be leftovers or fruits and veggies that are about to go bad. Sometimes it’s hard to think of what we’ll do with them so that we don’t waste food. To help us all out, I’ve compiled a list of ideas. Enjoy!
1. Use over ripe bananas to make banana bread.
2. Use apples, peaches, etc to make a pie or cobbler. Umhmmm!
3. Leftover grilled chicken tastes great on top of a salad!
4. Have excess bread? Make stuffing or croutons.
5. Use your excess hamburger to make a sloppy joe sandwich.
6. Save your beef or chicken broth and freeze it. Use it later for soups.
7. Save those last few pieces of bacon from breakfast and add them on a baked potato tonight.
8. Have left over rotisserie chicken? Use it to make Rachael Ray’s chicken taco soup.
9. If you boiled too much chicken, use it to make chicken salad.
10. Use leftover sausage in a breakfast casserole.
11. Freeze it. There are lots of foods that you can freeze. Some of my favorites are lasagna, spaghetti sauce, chicken, and soups.
12. Make baby food.
13. Dehydrate your fruits for a tasty snack.
14. Have some meat that you absolutely have to use now? Make beef jerky.
15. Feed the birds. Each day, I throw something out for the neighbor’s (illegal) chicken. I’ve given him corn on the cob, bread, tortilla chips, etc. The chicken is very appreciative. :)
16. Freeze your bread scraps until you have enough to take your child to feed the ducks at a pond.
17. Use leftover chicken or beef to make quesadillas.
18. Use extra tomatoes to make tomato sandwiches or BLTs.
19. Freeze casseroles into lunch size portions. This will keep you from going out to eat while working.
20. Need to find a use for your extra tortilla chips? Use them to make chilaquiles.
21. If you have extra herbs from your garden, then dehydrate them to use during the off season.
22. Sprinkle leftover coffee and tea grounds on your plants. Most Starbucks shops even provide free bags for their customers.
23. Use it to make compost or a worm bed.
24. Use vegetables in a casserole or soup.
25. Organize leftovers. If leftovers are shoved here and there in your refrigerator, then you’ll forget about them or find them when they’re no good. This past week I have eaten leftover salad, pizza, chicken taco salad, pork chops, and more. I planned my lunches so that I had very little waste.
26. Use your leftover fried chicken, pork chops, or steak to put on a biscuit. I used my leftover pork chops today for a biscuit. Yummy!
27. Use leftover diced potatoes, steak, etc to make breakfast burritos.
28. Cut up extra onions and bell peppers and put them in your freezer. They won’t be as firm as fresh ones, but they’re still great in spaghetti, casseroles, and fajitas.
29. Have leftover turkey during the holidays? Who doesn’t? Check out 20 Things to Do with Leftover Turkey.
30. Those with a bountiful garden can tell you the benefits of canning vegetables.
31. This may seem like a no brainer, but only cook what you need.
32. Share with a friend! It is a shame to waste food. If you can’t find a use for it, or if you just want to help someone out, then pass your food along. My neighbor likes it when I have too much potato salad or pinto beans.
33. Use excess onions to make french onion soup. Oh, I’m getting hungry now!
34. Chop up your leftover roast, mix in some barbeque sauce, and have barbeque beef sandwiches.
35. Vacu-Seal your food to keep it extend its shelf life.
36. Throw your extra fruit into the blender to make a smoothie.
37. Use your leftover pinto beans to make refried beans.
38. Make potato soup.
39. Put your extra meat and veggies on a homemade pizza.
40. Top your cereal, oatmeal, or yogurt with sliced strawberries or bananas.
41. If you have oatmeal that going out of date, use it to make oatmeal cookies or no bake cookies.
42. Freeze your milk before it spoils. Some people say they can tell if milk has been frozen, so rather than drinking it, use it in casseroles or mashed potatoes.
43. If you have cream cheese that’s getting ready to go out of date, make a cheesecake or stuffed jalapenos. (I’ll be posting a recipe for stuffed jalapenos next week.)
44. Use milk, fruit, chocolate, peanut butter, etc to make homemade ice cream.
45. Save your vegetable water for your plants.
46. Boil your turkey or chicken carcas until it’s really tender and the meat falls off. Use the meat and broth to make soup.
47. Boil your noodles in your leftover chicken or beef broth. It gives them a great flavor.
48. Make fruit preserves.
49. If you have sour cream that is about to expire, you can mix it with some french onion soup mix and make dip.
50. Use your corn muffin mix before it expires to make this delicious corn casserole.
51. Freeze leftover wine into ice cube trays. Use it later for casseroles or cooking.
52. Make horchata with your rice. Would you believe that Mexican restaurants charge $1.50-$2 for this drink?
53. If you have some eggs you need to use, then try making crepes. They’re really easy to make and are good too.
54. If you have fresh spinach that’s about to go bad, wilt it in a pan with butter and use it to put inside your crepe. My husband made these last night and they were yummy!
Other helpful articles:
25 Tips for Freezing Food
What kinds of foods can you freeze?
Well, that’s only about 50 ways to keep from wasting food. I know there are hundreds more. What are your favorite ways?
LRN
WOW!! That is some list! Thanks for all the other ideas. I do alot of those already. I had to laugh at your point “feed the birds”…around here it is “feed the squirrels”! I put bread out for the birds and the squirrels gobble it up before the birds even have a chance to find it!
Great tips! Thank you!
Tagged ya:
http://laurawilliamsmusings.blogspot.com/2008/02/what-are-you-reading-tag.html
For #16
Frozen ends and bread scraps (of course that no one has eaten off of) make wonderful croûtons or breadcrumbs for other cooking!
What a great list Karen. The one I need to work on is #25. I tend to just put the containers in the fridge and I don’t know how often we’ve gone back and looked. Oh, that would have made a decent lunch a WEEK AGO!
Great list! For #22, I’m mildly confused: what is the benefit of sprinkling coffee grounds on to plants? I can see using them within compost for richer soil. Regardless, fantastic post.
Matt: I’ve read that coffee grounds release nitrogen, zinc, magnesium and amino acids. They also feed the earthworms and repel slugs.
It certainly is a cheap way to help out your plants. I don’t put them on my inside plants though because sometimes my cat gets a bit crazy digging in them.
Thanks for visiting my blogs.
I have one more that I think you haven’t visited.
http://littlefunlittlelearning.blogspot.com
This one may help out with your little ones.
What a helpful post! Thanks for taking the time to compile it.
Kacie: Glad you like it. I just added #53 and #54 to the list just now.
Cindy: I know what you mean. One thing that may help you is to have a certain shelf in the refrigerator that’s just for leftovers. I have an extremely small refrigerator, so this wouldn’t work for me, but I’ve heard it helps others.
Sonshine: I have a picture of my squirrel friend at my other blog. I put it up this week.
http://balanceindiet.com
I started out feeding the neighbor’s free roaming chicken in an attempt to get her to quit digging in my mulch. It worked and along the way, I made a friend. The squirrel comes up on my deck with the things I have thrown into the yard. He sits on the corner of the deck and eats them. He even jumped over to my bathroom window ledge when he saw me looking out at him.
Great list — except #16. Feeding bread to ducks is actually quite detrimental to their health and to ours as well. (See http://www.liveducks.com/bread.html for information).
Why not save your crusts up to make bread pudding, instead?