Low-waste recipes from the Bristol Waste team
What does good food mean to you? Healthy, tasty, locally sourced, seasonal? To us at Bristol Waste Company, it’s all about low-waste recipes.
Waste food accounts for around 8-10% of all global greenhouse emissions and costs the average family household around £1,000 a year. Plus, when food waste isn’t put into the brown food waste recycling bin, it emits harmful methane as it rots and costs the city millions in disposal costs.
See below for some of the team’s favourite waste-busting recipes, good for your wallet, your bin and our planet! 🌍
Hannah’s low-waste brothy noodles
Prep time 20-30 mins
This is my go-to recipe if I’ve got any veg that’s looking a bit peaky. Even bendy carrots and wilting spring onions can be revived with some spicy, flavoursome stock!
Ingredients
- 1l of hot veg stock
- tsp of miso paste
- dried chillies or chilli flakes (quantity depends on your preference, I go with 1-2 whole dried chillies and a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes)
- tbsp of peanut butter
- sprinkle of Chinese five spice
- ‘ready to wok’ noodles, or similar
- soy sauce
- literally any veg you have that needs using up!
Method
- Pop everything in a pan (some veg might need longer than others)
- Stir and simmer
- Add soy sauce and more dried chillies if needed
- Serve and enjoy
Kathy’s zero-waste stock box
Prep time: overnight
This is such a good way to reuse all your veg peelings. When I prep vegetables for a meal, maybe a roast dinner, pie or similar, I just keep the vegetable peelings and trimmings to one side.
I call it my veggie stock box.
Ingredients
- Absolutely any and all veggie peeling and trimmings
- Some water
Method
Pop the veggie leftovers into a slow cooker with a litre of water (or enough to fully cover all the veg) overnight and voila, low-waste stock!
Keep the stock in the fridge or even freeze it if you want to keep it fresh for as long as possible.
Saul’s super soup
Prep time 20-40 mins
From Saul: “Get soup blender machine, chuck it all in. Takes 20 minutes.”
Alternatively, if you didn’t get talked into buying a specific ‘soup making machine’ for your low-waste recipes, simmer all your vegetables in a saucepan with some hot stock, season to taste and blend using a hand blender.
Even vegetables that might be on the turn can be transformed into a delicious, warming lunch with this technique.
Kathy’s brown banana pancakes
Prep time: 10-15 mins
The perfect way to use up brown bananas. This is a favourite of my son, who is 3. It’s so quick to do and the high sugar levels in overripe bananas mean it gets lovely and caramelised.
Ingredients
- 1 cup of oats
- 1 egg
- 1 banana (the browner the better)
Method
- Whisk all the ingredients together
- Fry in a pan with a bit of butter until the outside is all caramelised and delicious
Kathy’s broccoli stem chips
Prep time: 20-45 mins
Broccoli stems are often overlooked, but save them from going to waste! They can be really delicious with the right low-waste recipes. This one is a favourite of my family’s and it feels like a real treat.
Ingredients
- Broccoli stems
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Method
- Slice into chips
- Add salt and pepper and a little bit of oil
- Roast in the oven (30 ish mins)
- Or air-fry (10 mins)
Salad bag pesto – another from Kathy (should we have given her an entire blog?)
Prep time: 5 mins
Bags of salad are one of the most commonly wasted food items. They are often bought from the shop, have a brief holiday in your fridge, and end up in the bin.
Let’s stop bagged salad waste! Use even peaky-looking salad up with this super simple pesto alternative.
Ingredients
- Any bagged salad
- A big handful of nuts, pine nuts or cashews work really well for this
- A bit of cheese (vegan cheese works just as well)
- A clove of garlic
- Salt and pepper
- A drizzle of olive oil
- A squeeze of lemon juice
Method
- Pop all the ingredients into a blender
- Enjoy with pasta, salad or as a sauce for almost anything!
More low-waste recipes and tips from the team
Khadeeja’s top tip
🧊 Feed that freezer!
So many low-waste recipes start or end with your freezer. Because I’m often cooking for one, I’ve always got leftovers. I make a batch of something and then freeze what I don’t use. I also save my butter tubs (the 500g sizes) because they perfectly hold a single portion of mince, meatballs, curries etc. It saves the butter tubs going out to the recycling too.
Alex’s top tip
📝 Plan ahead.
Best investment, get a whiteboard to put on your fridge and keep notes of what your meal plan is and what needs eating next. It saves us so much money and means we waste so much less.
Nohelia’s waste-busting tip
🥫 Save the water from tins of chickpeas!
The water you might strain from a tin of chickpeas is called aquafaba, it’s super useful in baking and vegan cooking. Have a look online for what amazing things you can make with it. My favourite is vegan meringue 😋
More waste-nothing wisdom from Kathy
🥔 Spanish omelettes are the perfect way to use up potatoes
🍋 Use lemons to descale your kettle
Hannah D’s top tips
🍹 You can slice up and freeze leftover lemons and limes. Perfect for adding some flavour and chill to drinks.
🍅 If you’ve made too much tomato pasta sauce or pizza sauce – freeze in ice tray cubes for future use! This makes it really easy to portion in the future.
Bread lover Hannah S’s tip
🍞 Sourdough is perfect for the freezer too!
I like to slice up a whole loaf so I always have toast on hand, and cut up the ends into croutons. Then you can throw them into the oven for 15 mins with some olive oil and herbs to get a crispy and delicious topper for soup.
