Get The Most Out of Your Groceries: Easy Ways to Use Food Scraps

This innovative cookbook has us marveling at ways to use up the bits from cooking that we normally throw away. When was the last time you looked at potato skins, stale bread, corn cobs, and wilted greens and thought “YUM!”? Here are some exciting new recipes and so much more which keep waste from our landfills and save you money at the same time!

From turning citrus into air fresheners, to using cucumber peels as an ant repellant, to grinding up eggshells to clean your bathroom and tossing your scraps into a pan to create dinner, the IKEA Scrapsbook makes it easy to be sustainable in your own kitchen and truly get your money’s worth out of your groceries.

Keep reading for the tips! Remember, doing good things for the Earth doesn’t have to be complicated.

Turn your “trash” into a new favorite dish!

At the end of prepping for our meals, we’re usually left with a lot of random bits and pieces: carrot tops, broccoli stems, citrus peels, watermelon and cheese rinds, shrimp shells, you name it. And even though you didn’t use them in your dish, you can still make something awesome with them!

All it takes is opening up this PDF cookbook. They have an index full of scraps and the recipes that they can be included in, as well as pages of ideas on how to use your scraps in ways outside of the kitchen.

Whether you’re using banana peels to shine your plants, scrubbing your cutting board with lemon, or even regrowing certain scraps like bok choy, green onions, and celery, there’s something in this cookbook that’ll make your life so much easier and more fun!

Here’s Alejandro Alba from NowThis Earth to show us all about the many ways that we can use our banana scraps—even making banana peel bacon!

Click here to see the entire IKEA Scrapsbook! Show us what you use your scraps to make over on Instagram.

If you’d like to see more great content from NowThis Earth, head over to their YouTube channel and subscribe!

Some of my favorite tips:

• Used coffee grounds can become a great plant fertilizer as well as a facial or body scrub!
• Banana peels have all sorts of uses. Drop a few inside of a container of water for a few days and you can make a potassium and phosphorus-rich compost tea for your garden. You could even use the peels to remove dust from plants, or incorporate them into your next dish!
• Veggie tops like carrots and radishes are really tasty and can be eaten separately.
• Dry, stale bread can be used as a sponge for cleaning and it’s a great addition to recipes with a lot of juice.
• Citrus can be boiled in water on a stove as a natural air freshener, or be dried and added to your cleaning solution to better fight grease.
• Regrow what you can! Scallions are one of the easiest foods to keep growing—many of my friends have gotten multiple servings out of the same bunch just by sticking the stems in water after you cut off the white part.
• Wilted veggies are great for soups and sautees.
• Bruised fruit? Make a jam!

There is a seemingly endless treasure trove of ideas to keep your kitchen more sustainable and to keep more money in your pocket. It’s a win-win for both you and the Earth!

If you’d like more easy ways to have a positive impact, check out these articles next:

What are some of your favorite no-waste tips? Share them with us on Instagram!

And as always, my friend, stay open to new possibilities. You never know how good a “pulp burger” can be until you try it.

Sam

Don’t miss out on a single article!

Enjoy unlimited access to over 500 articles & podcast that give you a positive perspective on the state of the world and show you practical ways you can help.

Sign up now!