Turning table scraps into gourmet meals: Learn the art of zero-waste cooking from a professional chef

Jennifer Allen | Associated Press

Carrot tops, potato peels and bones quickly go from your cutting board to the trash bin, but no more. These are just a few ingredients at the center of the zero-waste movement, promising to make meals delicious and sustainable.

As food waste continues to contribute to environmental issues, chefs and home cooks alike are looking for creative ways to repurpose every part of their meals. Some fine dining restaurants, like Rhodora Wine Bar in New York and Lionfish in San Diego, boast a zero-waste kitchen while guaranteeing an exceptional and unforgettable meal.

Are you ready to turn your meal scraps into gourmet meals? Read on to learn the best zero-waste cooking tips from a professional chef.

What you’ll love about zero-waste cooking

Zero-waste cooking offers myriad benefits. By adopting this approach, you can maximize the value of your groceries, push yourself to experiment with new recipes and contribute towards more sustainable living.

First, zero-waste cooking positively contributes to reducing food waste. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, approximately one-third of food produced globally is wasted. This further contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and represents a loss of resources used in food production​. By seeking to maximize your ingredients, you can support sustainability from your home.

Another primary advantage of zero-waste cooking is the financial benefits. By utilizing every part of your ingredients, you can make the most of your groceries, reducing the need to buy additional food. Using stale bread, for example, to make croutons ensures that nothing goes to waste and eliminates the need to pay expensive grocery store prices for this household staple.

By stretching your budget, zero-waste cooking can also help you appreciate the full potential of your ingredients. When you experiment with using parts of ingredients that are often discarded, like stems, peels and cores, you may discover unique tastes and culinary possibilities you would not have considered. This can lead to more interesting meals that enhance your cooking experience and push your palate.

Moreover, as you engage with zero-waste cooking, you are actively participating in reducing the environmental impact of your food consumption and moving towards sustainable living. This effort can help you to feel more connected to your food and the environment, fostering a sense of mindfulness and eco-social responsibility.

Chef Jenn Allen’s tips for zero-waste cooking

Mastering zero-waste cooking involves adopting a few key techniques that help you make the most of your ingredients while reducing waste. Dive into these simple yet effective methods to turn your kitchen into a waste-free zone.

Stockpile your scraps

More likely than not, after cooking one meal, you won’t have enough scraps to do anything substantial with. This is why accumulating vegetable peels, ends and other trimmings in a dedicated container in your freezer is essential to a zero-waste kitchen. This method ensures that you always have base ingredients for your soups and stocks and extends the shelf life of items that would normally go to waste.

Use a compost bin for non-edible waste

While zero-waste cooking attempts to eliminate as much waste as possible, some amount is inevitable. Food scraps like coffee grounds or eggshells cannot be repurposed, nor are they edible. Set up a compost bin to ensure that your wasted food scraps have a sustainable place to go, thereby contributing to reducing the load on landfills. If you have a small balcony garden or a backyard, your compost can be used as a fertilizer for your plants.

Get creative with your leftovers

Being creative and adaptable is the cornerstone of zero-waste cooking. Chef Jenn Allen suggests using leftover vegetables in soups or sauces, while leftover grains can be repurposed into salads or stir-fries. If you have an abundance of one ingredient, consider how you might use it sparingly across several dishes. Grilled meats or fish, for example, can be used in burritos, omelets and casseroles within a week without feeling like your meals are repetitive.

Plan meals around what you have

Before heading to the grocery store, ensure you take stock of what you already have. Zero-waste kitchens thrive on careful and intentional consumption. This practice will help you avoid unnecessary purchases and encourage you to buy ingredients with a purpose, making the most of what you have. Additionally, batch-cooking meals that are portioned out for the week or frozen for later use reduces the likelihood of spoilage and helps to make cooking more efficient.

Learn proper storage techniques

Proper storage is the key to extending the life of your fresh foods and reducing waste from spoilage. For example, leafy greens are best stored in a container with a damp paper towel, while herbs should be kept in a glass of water covered in a plastic bag in the fridge. Airtight containers maintain leftovers and labeling them with dates can help track their freshness. Learning more about the best ways to store different foods can help you make the most of your groceries.

Adjust seasonings as you go

Cooking with scraps and leftovers can be a bit of an adjustment initially. Often, scraps may not have the same intensity of flavor as you’re used to, so you may need to compensate with additional spices, herbs and seasonings. Taste your food as you go without being afraid to experiment with flavor adjustments to suit your preferences. Practice makes perfect, and this method ensures that your dishes are as delicious as they are sustainable.

Turning common table scraps into gourmet meals

Zero-waste cooking is founded on creative ways to use typically discarded parts of your ingredients. Some common kitchen scraps are usually thrown away. However, by utilizing every part of your ingredients, you can create dishes that are both delicious and environmentally friendly.

Vegetable peels and ends

Vegetable peels and ends are often discarded, but they are packed with nutrients and flavor that can be used to make a delicious vegetable broth for soups, stews and sauces. To make your broth, gather peels from staple vegetables like carrots, onions and celery. Boil them in a large pot with water, salt and pepper, simmer for an hour then strain out your vegetable scraps. Not only is this homemade broth cheaper, but it also tastes fresher than store-bought alternatives.

You can also replicate this method to make a delicious vegetable peel soup. Add more spices to suit your preferences while simmering, and instead of straining out the vegetable scraps, use an immersion blender to incorporate them at the end of the cooking process. Another great use for vegetable peels is to make roasted peel chips. Toss the peels in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and any other desired seasonings and roast in the oven until crispy for a healthy snack.

Fruit scraps

Fruit scraps are versatile ingredients that can enhance various recipes and drinks. Instead of throwing out peels and rinds, consider using them to make infused waters and teas. Allowing apple peels, berry tops or citrus rinds to infuse into your water for a couple of hours in the refrigerator imparts a subtle and refreshing fruit flavor. These scraps can also be steeped in your tea to add a nuanced fruitiness to classic flavors.

Another great use for fruit scraps is to create homemade vinegar. Leftover parts of the apple or even pineapple skins can be left to ferment in a clean jar with water and sugar for a couple of weeks to make a tangy vinegar. This vinegar can be used in salad dressings, marinades or even as a natural cleaning agent. By repurposing fruit scraps, you can discover new flavors that may have otherwise been thrown away.

Stale bread

Nothing is quite worse than having to throw away half a loaf of bread because it has gotten stale, however, you can give stale bread a new life by repurposing it. One classic use is croutons which are easily made by cutting the bread into cubes, tossing it with olive oil, garlic powder and other herbs of your choice and then baking in the oven until golden and crispy.

Another delicious option is a panzanella salad, which eliminates the effort of even making croutons. This Italian dish combines chunks of stale bread with tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions and basil, dressed in olive oil and vinegar. For a sweet option, try out a bread pudding. This dessert transforms stale bread into a custardy treat by soaking the bread in a mixture of milk, eggs, sugar and spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

Bones and meat scraps

Similar to the use of vegetable peels, bones and meat scraps can also be used to make rich and flavorful stocks and broths. Simmer meat bones with aromatics like onion, garlic and fresh herbs of your choice to extract the nutrients and flavors from the bone. The high collagen content in bone broth is great for joint health and adds rich flavor to any soups, stews and sauces, or can even be enjoyed on its own.

For a delicious gourmet meal, use the bone broth to prepare risotto. Start by heating the broth in a large pot while you sauté shallots and lightly toast Arborio rice in a saucepan. Ladle in the bone broth and allow each portion of broth to be absorbed by the rice before adding the next. Finish your risotto with a generous amount of butter and parmesan cheese to create a creamy and lush dish steeped in subtle and aromatic bone broth flavors.

Get your zero-waste kitchen going

Zero-waste cooking offers many benefits for the environment and your family. Though the initial adoption of this practice may seem daunting, breaking it down into baby steps with the tips in this article can help make this transition easy.

Jennifer Allen is a retired professional chef and long-time writer. Her writing appears in dozens of publications, and she has two cookbooks, “Keto Soup Cookbook” and “Keto Diabetic Cookbook and Meal Plan.” These days, she’s busy in the kitchen, developing recipes for various publications and traveling. You can find all her best recipes at Cook What You Love.