Clever uses for food scraps

It always seems a shame to throw out food, even if it is scraps and peelings from dinner preparation. But did you know that you can make wonderful flavorings and broths from food scraps? We found several websites with ingenious uses for peelings, scraps, and leftovers.

You may already be familiar with making broth from vegetable peels and scraps, as explained here by indexed blog The Kitchn. In addition to the usual onions, celery, and carrots, you can “save roots, stalks, leaves, ends, and peelings from vegetables such as leeks, scallions, garlic, fennel, chard, lettuce, potatoes, parsnips, green beans, squash, bell peppers, eggplant, mushrooms, and asparagus. Corn cobs, winter squash skins, beet greens, and herbs like parsley and cilantro are also good additions.” You’ll need about 4 cups of scraps to make 2 quarts of broth. 

Indexed blog Serious Eats has a different take, using tomato peels and scallion greens to make flavorful powders. The drying process is made easy by utilizing the microwave and paper towels, and a spice grinder or mortar and pestle is used to grind the peels.  These vibrant powders add a dash of flavor to potato chips or popcorn. You can also “sprinkle some on your caprese salad, or use them to coat the rim of your next Bloody Mary-the world is your tomato and scallion-dusted oyster.”

Another use for leftover peels comes from indexed magazine Bon Appétit. They explain how to use ginger peels to make a highly flavorful broth. The ginger broth can be used in cocktails, as a liquid to steam vegetables, as a broth for a carrot soup, or diluted with water to make a soothing ginger tea. Finally, in an article exploring ways to save money on groceries, The Huffington Post shows us how to use apple peels and cores to make jelly, potato peels to make potato chips/crisps, and stale cookies to make pie crusts.