Reducing food waste

Published: 14/09/2020

Updated: 09/12/2021

These are my hints and tips to reduce food waste and most importantly make the most of your food and money.

Top tips

1. Meal plan - this only needs to be a rough guide, you can move around the days that you cook the food
2. Buy food that can be used in multiple dishes (to aid in using it up)
3. Freeze certain food (e.g. root ginger, fruit etc) until they are required 
4. If your fruit has become over-ripe stew it (recipes below)
5. Be aware of the fresh fruit and vegetable use-by dates, this will impact when you need to cook your pre-planned meals

Stewed fruit

• Cut the fruit into quatres (remove any stones or apple cores) 
• Cut these quatres into smaller pieces and place them inside a large microwaveable dish
• Put a thick covering of sugar on top
• Place in the microwave for 3 minutes
• Take the fruit out stir and microwave in 1-minute intervals
• Repeat the last step until the fruit vaguely resembles a puree

Flavour combinations for the stewed fruit

Apples

• Apple and cranberries
• Apple and apricots
• Apple and blackberries

Strawberry and raspberry

Rice

Use a mug or cup to help with eyeballing the rough amount of rice you require. This small tip will help you to avoid cooking an excessive amount (enough to feed a small tribe).

Pasta

Measure the quantity of fusilli or another type of pasta using handfuls this will enable reasonably accurate portion sizes. For Spaghetti or Linguine group them together and compare them to a coin size eg. 5p or 50p. 

Leftovers

If you have any food leftover, put this into a microwaveable container so that you can use it for lunch the next day. It's a low effort meal!

Frozen vegetables and fruit

These last longer than their fresh counterparts. I love ASDA's frozen for freshness fruit and their frozen spinach and cauliflower.

The frozen fruit is delicious defrosted on top of porridge/cereal and with yoghurt. 

Frozen spinach and cauliflower are both really delicious in pasta dishes or when mixed in sauces (e.g. curry). I usually add the spinach and cauliflower when I am boiling the pasta and then strain them before adding in the pasta sauce. 

Tinned fish, sweetcorn and beans

These can taste really delicious and last for months. Try different tinned products from different suppliers to find your favourites. 

Do you have any tips? Please put them in the comments box below