The holiday season produces a lot of waste. Not just used wrapping paper and dried out Christmas trees, but also a ton of food. Around one-third of the food supply in the U.S. become waste, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Earlier this year, the City Cast Philly podcast team spoke with Rachel Sherman, pastry chef and project manager of the Drexel Food Lab, and DeAndra Forde, Drexel University doctoral student and registered dietitian. They shared their tips for decreasing food waste and saving money this holiday season:
🥦 Mindful Meal Planning
- Design a dish out of things you already have in your pantry. Spruce up turkey with those extra bottles of BBQ sauce, or replace the cream in your squash soup with coconut milk.
- Remember, not everyone eats every holiday dish. If you know Aunt Susie hates pie and cousin Bill is vegetarian, you can aim to make less holiday food overall.
- Pro-tip from Forde: don’t head to the grocery store hungry, it's a recipe for over-buying.
Sherman says day-old cranberry sauce, and other condiments, can get a second life as a pizza or flatbread topping. (Getty Images)
🥘 Make New Dishes from Your Scraps
- Look at your potatoes in a different way. Turn them into chips or make them into poppers.
- Don’t underestimate vegetable scraps. Throw things like carrot tops and parsley stems into a pot to make a vegetable broth that can be used in soups or for gravy.
- Save your gourd decorations, because they are also edible! Make a gourd casserole or soup after you are done enjoying these vegetables as house adornments.
- Check out the Drexel Food Lab’s recipe for an apple core and strawberry top jam here.
- Here’s a wild one: Sherman suggests getting creative with celery leaves or other savory scraps by steeping them in cream, then turning that into celery ice cream!
- Sticking with the ice cream theme, throw some scoops of vanilla and leftover pumpkin pie filling into a blender with some milk for a pumpkin pie milkshake. Garnish with crumbled crust.
Let us know what you create using these tips!
