How BA Staffers Use Up All the Wilting, Spoiling, and Forgotten Stuff in Our Fridges
Our crisper drawer is a graveyard of good intentions: wilted basil meant for a summery pesto, mushy lettuce once destined for an aspirational breakfast salad. It may not seem like a lot, but it adds up: One third of all the food produced in the world is wasted.
While some of this waste happens on farms and in grocery stores, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent report concludes that curbing food waste is one of the most effective ways we can slow down climate change on an individual level. That means shopping smarter, strategically meal planning, and giving would-be garbage new life. From takeout frittatas to overripe fruit ice cream, these are the Bon Appetit staff’s favorite “use-it-up” recipes.
Photo by Chelsie Craig, food styling by Alison Attenborough1/14Cilantro (or Any-Herb) Chutney
I make chutney out of leftover herbs! Just blitz 'em with lime juice, a green chile, water, salt, and a pinch o’ sugar. You can put a chutney on anything — I use it in salad dressings, as a sandwich spread, and as a sauce for roasted vegetables. Chutneys also freeze really well, and adding lime juice provides zinginess even if your herbs have lost a bit of their freshness! —Priya Krishna, contributing writer
Photo by Alex Lau, Food Styling by Rebecca Jurkevich, Prop Styling by Kalen Kaminski2/14CBD Mango Smoothie
You know that mango you bought in a fit of creativity at the grocery store three weeks ago and forgot about until just now, when it's about 10 seconds away from turning on you? All is not lost: You can freeze it and save it for smoothies! But don't just nestle it whole beside 2015's perma-frosted chicken cutlets. Take the three minutes required to peel it, slice it, and put it in Tupperware. Because attempting to chop through rock-hard frozen mango skin is a fate nobody deserves—not even future you. — Hilary Cadigan, associate editor
Photo by Alex Lau, prop styling by Kendra Smoot3/14Use-It-Up Frittata
Frittatas are a beautiful way to showcase peak produce (whether it's summer or winter), but they're also the best way to turn sad bottom-of-the-crisper produce into something good enough to eat. I take it one step further even and fold my full-meal leftovers—whether I'm sick of eating them or there's simply not enough to stand as its own meal—into a frittata. Be it fried rice, a small amount of crispy ground meat, or pasta, in it goes, and suddenly it's something new.— Emma Wartzman, editorial assistant
Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Maggie Ruggiero4/14Herb Jam
Anytime I've got wilted greens, I make a batch of herb jam. Because the greens and herbs are cooked to oblivion, you can use even your not-primo-looking half bunches and end up with something deeply flavored and complex. I would keep a pint of this in the fridge and toss it into a rice or pasta dish or spoon it through yogurt or ricotta to make a dip. —Carla Lalli Music, food director
Alex Lau6/14Fried Brown Rice With Kale and Turmeric
I will make fried rice with just about anything I find wilting in my produce drawer. It's the kind of dish that always, miraculously, becomes way more than the sum of its parts. My most recent iteration was inspired by a bunch of chard that was barely holding on, to which I added a gnarly-looking red onion half, a shallot, grated ginger, a green chile, and a handful of random herbs. In under an hour, I had dinner and a few days' of healthyish lunches...and I'd avoided the terrible guilt I would've felt if that chard had ended up in the trash. —Amanda Shapiro, Healthyish editor
Photo by Marcus Nilsson, food styling by Rebecca Jurkevich, prop styling by Amy Wilson7/14Fiery Green Tahini Sauce
I aim to use herbs as extravagantly as Andy Baraghani (who scatters fitsfuls of mint and basil onto just about everything that comes out of the test kitchen), but despite my best efforts, it feels like there’s always something wilting in the crisper. In times like these, I make a fiery green tahini sauce. Whether it's adorning a grain bowl or anchoring a crudités platter, it always gets used up.—Aliza Abarbanel, Healthyish assistant editor
Photograph by Victoria Jane, Food Styling by Mallory Lance, Prop Styling by Alexandra Massillon9/14BA’s Best Banana Bread
Okay, so this is perhaps a rather obvious classic but banana bread is hands-down the best way to use up those old squishy 'naners sitting on your counter before they turn into a pool of goop. This very excellent recipe for BA's Best Banana Bread (with walnuts AND chocolate chips, because yes you do need both) will turn four of those bad boys into an ooey-gooey loaf that's perfect for bringing to work. Brown bananas --> brown-nosing --> everybody wins. —Hilary Cadigan, associate editor
Photo by Alex Lau, food styling by Sue Li, prop styling by Kalen Kaminski10/14Spicy Lightly Pickled Cucumbers
I hate wasting food so I've started experimenting with pickling the odds and ends leftover from my produce hauls at the farmers market. I'll take kale stems and peppers that have seen better days and convert them something I look forward to eating, rather than tossing them and increasing the number of food waste woes. I've been chopping the pickled stems and sprinkling them into my salads and grain bowls for a much needed hit of acid and spice. —Jesse Sparks, editorial assistant
Christopher Testani11/14Pressure-Cooker Gigante Beans in Tomato Sauce
My husband turns tomato guts (a.k.a. the seedy, watery insides of a tomato, which you'd have handy after making the no-cook puttanesca) into the best Cantonese-style tomato sauce. He cooks down the tomato leftovers with a little soy sauce or fish sauce, maybe a splash of Maggi or sambal to change it up every so often, until it's thick and almost jammy (sometimes he adds cornstarch to thicken). Served with fluffy scrambled eggs and sticky white rice, it's now become my favorite breakfast.—Elyse Inamine, digital restaurant editor
Photo by Michael Graydon + Nikole Herriott12/14Swiss Chard–Tahini Dip
I like to turn the bundles of stalks from hardy greens like kale, collards, or Swiss chard into creamy, hummus-like dips. All you have to do is boil the stalks until they're super tender, then dry them off and food process them with tahini, garlic, and lemon juice—it's a truly amazing transformation that I learned about from cookbook author Tara Duggan. And because it works with frozen stalks, there's no immediate urgency: If I'm making a salad, I'll just throw the stalks in a bag in the freezer and save the project for a free afternoon. — Sarah Jampel, Basically editor
Peden + Munk13/14Spicy Chicken Stock
Homemade stock is one of the easiest ways to use up ingredients that are on their way out, or scraps—beet greens, carrot tops, smaller celery stalks, rotisserie chicken carcasses—you might normally not use. I just throw whatever I've got in my biggest pot, cover with water, add some salt, pepper, bay leaves, and let it simmer away. Once the flavor is where I want it, I measure out the liquid gold into pint containers or freeze it into ice cubes to use later. It's one of my favorite Sunday projects once the weather gets cool, and there's major payoff with barely any work. —Sasha Levine, Bonappetit.com editor
Yossy Arefi14/14Green Tacos
I stockpile sweet potatoes, avocados, and greens, so I make these Alison Roman tacos—or a version of them—whenever I need to deal with excess. Sweet potatoes get sort of pock-marked and shriveled, horrifying but still edible. All leftovers can be taco'ed! The biggest lesson is to squeeze lime over everything to liven it up, especially for that deathbed kale. — Alex Beggs, staff writer
