Stop Throwing Away These 5 Food Scraps

1. Citrus Rinds

You can store citrus for weeks in your crisper drawer and freeze the rinds and juice for later use. “We have  a preserved citrus recipe but there are countless things you can do with the rinds and the pith,” Irene says. “You can make extract, you can ferment them. My husband is a cocktail person and we go through so much citrus. When you start looking at that ingredient in a different way you’re like oh my gosh we’re rich!” Among the recipes in the book: Citrus curd (the tangy-sweet sauce), What’s-in-Your-Fridge Citrus Cake, and Preserved Citrus.

2. Vegetable Stalks and Stems

“A lot of time, it’s just about altering the texture of the tougher parts of vegetables to make them more workable,” Li says. Usually, that just means cooking the kale or Swiss chard stems a bit longer before you add the tender greens. Same with broccoli. “Chinese cuisine uses broccoli stalk in a lot of recipes in equal share with the florets, so the idea that you’d throw away the stem was so crazy to me,” Irene says. “You can use kale stems in a stir fry or puree them for a soup or a sauce.” 

3. Onion and Garlic Peels

You might not use these every day, but you can save them in the freezer and use them in a chicken or vegetable stock. “We also have a scrap chili oil recipe that makes use of onion skins,  garlic peels, and scallion stems,” Irene says. “If you were to amass them over time, the feeling is ‘Wow, we have all this stuff!”

4. Overripe Fruit

When fruit grows a little soft (but hasn’t spoiled), freeze it and use in smoothies. “Margaret takes this approach with her kids,” Irene says. “If she has fruit that is not prime for eating out of hand it goes into the freezer labeled “Fruit for Smoothies.” If her kids don’t finish the smoothies, they go into a popsicle mold. She calls it ‘fruit three times.’ I have to use this with myself, to be honest.”

5. Potato and Carrot Peels

“Margaret’s Scottish husband loves mashed potatoes and he’s kind of a purist about them and doesn’t like the peels in the mash,” Irene says [Margaret, the book’s primary author, recently moved to Glasgow with her family]. “So she saves the russet potato peels, tosses them with salt, oil, parmesan, or whatever she has on hand and bakes them until they’re crispy. I think she takes great joy in making him eat those peels. This approach also works with carrot, beet, turnip, or other root veggie peels.