Our favourite zero-waste recipes

Because a zero-waste lifestyle also includes zero-food-wasting actions, we’ve put together a small compilation of our favourite recipes that will help you use up all the leftovers and empty out the fridge in no time!

Made too much quinoa?

Ever since I’ve received my rice cooker for Christmas (not necessarily a kitchen essential, but considering all the rice I burnt, it was a good investment). I make quinoa often, maybe a little too often if you ask my boyfriend, but that’s not the point. Sometimes I go overboard, and I make too big a batch, but it’s ok because I found this fabulous Martha Stewart recipe for delicious, fluffy pancakes. Here it is:

Ingredients

• 1 cup of cooked Quinoa
• ¾ cup of all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp of baking powder
• ½ tbsp of salt
• 1 egg + 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp of butter  (I use coconut oil)
• ¼ cup of milk (or any vegan milk: soy, almond, cashew, etc.)

In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together and in another, combine all the wet ones together.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and make sure you mix them well.

Bake your pancakes in an oiled pan for 2 minutes on each side

The famous homemade broth

Keep your vegetable peels and/or your chicken/turkey bones in an air-tight container in your freezer and whenever you are up to it, take it out and add it to a big pot with herbs, spices and a few root vegetables (like carrots, onions and garlic) then cover with water, let simmer for a few hours and bam! You’ve made your very own homemade broth, which is great to have on hand when you want to spruce up a recipe or when you need it to soothe little colds in winter.

*The peels can then go in your compost, having served their purpose to the very end.

Almond milk and its pulp

Almond milk is delicious, and it’s incredibly easy to make at home, but sometimes it’s hard to know what to do with the leftover pulp. The answer to this question is this: there are a million things to do with it.

The easiest is to lay it on a cookie sheet and to let it dry in the oven at 300F for a few minutes. Then you put it in the blender, and you get almond powder for future recipes.

You can also use it as an ingredient in a muffin, granola or cookie recipe to add a little crunch and some protein!

Recipe for almond pulp crackers -Prana

Dry bread

Now, we all know that all good things must come to an end, and sometimes you just cannot eat all the bread before it dries up. But wait, there are a few options before you throw it out in the garbage.

An easy option is to put it in the oven for a few minutes and then into your food processor, which will make homemade breadcrumbs.

You can also dice it up in little pieces, spread them on a cookie sheet, drizzle a dash of olive oil with salt and pepper and some garlic powder and it’ll give you delicious homemade croutons for your salads or soups.

For those with a sweet tooth, you can use your leftover dry bread to make bread pudding -Recipe here

Too many bananas?

Nicecream.  The trendiest recipe on the internet these days. Everyone loves a good banana bread but sometimes change is good. So, stop throwing out your black bananas. Freeze them, and later mash them up in your food processor. You’ll then be able to be creative as you want with it. You can then let your creativity flow when decorating your banana nicecream bowl with chocolate chips, nut butter, cookies; you get it…whatever floats your boat!

Pineapple core

This tip we got from Florence Lea’s book (Chic frigo sans fric) which holds many zero waste recipes that you can personalize as you wish!

When enjoying a pineapple, the core is often disregarded, but wait! Don’t throw it out just yet! Instead, add it to a jug of water and get delicious flavoured water that tastes like summer!

It’s refreshing and such a nice change from plain water :)

Fruits gone bad

Quick-fix chia jam recipes are always a great idea when it comes to using those fruits gone bad. (blueberries, raspberries, cherries, strawberries) And it’s super easy to make! Recipe here

If you have any recipes to share with us, don’t hesitate to leave them in the comment section, we love trying out new things!

Best leftover recipes :

https://chicfrigosansfric.com/