Don't Throw It Away: 9 Top Tips to Reduce Food Waste at Home

Did you know that roughly one third of all food produced globally ends up in the bin? Pretty shocking, right? If everyone in the UK alone stopped wasting food today, we’d have an extra 4.5 million tonnes of edible food on our plates. That works out as a saving of around £60 per household per month. But help is at hand - read on to discover simple recipes for transforming leftovers into delicious dishes from The Batch Lady, plus top tips for tackling food waste from our friends at the award-winning environmental organisation, Hubbub.

Now, we all love a turkey sandwich the day after Christmas, but there are plenty of ways to use up leftover food all year round (and not just by taking last night’s dinner into the office). Not sure where to start? We asked The Batch Lady - otherwise known as Suzanne Mulholland - for a little help. Famed for her food-saving skills, Suzanne has rustled up three delicious recipes that’ll use up those Christmas leftovers - and more.

Hungry for more food-saving ideas? We’ve teamed up with Hubbub to bring you some serious inspiration when it comes to using up the stuff in your kitchen - so you can cut down on waste (and hopefully your bills to boot).

So, how do you reduce food waste?

There are actually plenty of ways to save your food from a fate in the bin, whether it’s veggies forgotten at the back of your salad drawer or milk that’s on the turn (did you know you can use it in cakes and other bakes?). Let’s go!

1. Keep an eye on your cupboards

The first step is actively taking note of what you’re using - and what you’re not. No one wastes food on purpose, so spending a week or two writing down the items you use most often, and those that inevitably end up in the bin, will let you know what to cut back on when shopping.

Speaking of which, always check your cupboards before heading out to the supermarket. How many times have you topped up on bread or veggies only to realise there are some left lying at the back of a drawer? Making sure you’re only buying the things you need will quickly cut down on waste.

2. Know the difference between 'best before' and 'use by'

Do you know the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates? While the ‘use by’ label means a product is unsafe to eat after the specified date, ‘best before’ simply means it’ll be slightly less fresh - but still totally safe to snack on.

It might seem like a small difference, but the use of ‘best before’ dates is estimated to result in around 70% of safe-to-eat products being thrown away. That’s why several UK supermarkets have, as of 2022, removed these dates across hundreds of items - from fresh fruit and veg to milk and yoghurts.

3. Make use of your freezer

It sounds obvious, but using your freezer is one of the best (and easiest) ways to cut down on food waste. As a general rule, you can safely store food in your freezer for up to nine months - but never more than a year. Want to save money and time? Fill your oven whenever it goes on or cook extra of your favourites, and save the surplus in the freezer so it's ready whenever you need a quick - but delicious - dinner.

Cooking for one? Instead of throwing away leftover ingredients like garlic, chillies and herbs (or that half an onion that’s always left behind), chop them up and freeze them in clip-top boxes. That makes them easy to add to dishes next time you cook - and saves you dashing to the supermarket for more. You can also freeze basics like sliced bread, cheese, milk and eggs - very handy if you've ended up with too much.

Top tip: It’s better to cook vegetables with a high water content (like mushrooms, for example) before you freeze them.

4. Give food a glow up

Did you know, potatoes and herbs are some of the most commonly wasted foods in UK cupboards? And yet there are loads of ways you can use them up. Here are a couple of recipes to try from our friends at Hubbub.

There are plenty of fun, creative ways to use up those other ingredients left lying around, too. From making your own infused oils with spare herbs or chillies, to stir-frying leftover lettuce with oil, garlic and soy sauce for a tasty side dish.

5. Don’t ditch stale bread

Ready for another scary statistic? The UK wastes 200 million slices of bread - Every. Single. Day. Yep, really. But there’s good news, too - there are loads of ways to turn those stale slices into something delicious. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Fry it up for French toast

• Bake it and add to an Italian panzanella (or scatter over soup as classic croutons) 

• Blitz it in a food processor for breadcrumbs to finish off fish or add to meatballs

• Use it to make a bread sauce for your Sunday roast 

• Soak it in milk and add sugar, eggs and dried fruit to make a bread pudding 

• Spread with butter and garlic and cook in tinfoil for crispy garlic bread

• Top with tomato and basil for a Italian-inspired bruschetta

6. Save the bananas

Some foods have a greater environmental impact than others. Throwing away red meat, for example, has an impact roughly 28 times higher than chucking out a potato. Similarly, any product that can’t be grown in the UK, like bananas, has to travel thousands of miles to reach our fruit bowls. Despite that, the UK throws away 1.4 million of them every day.

So instead of waving farewell to browning bananas, use them for recipes like banana and chocolate pancakes, banana curry and of course, banana bread. You can even chop and freeze them to add to homemade smoothies later. Nice.

I’m going on holiday! What can I do with my food?

Don’t panic. There are still plenty of (easy) ways to avoid throwing your food away.

7. Donate it

Start by asking friends, family and neighbours if there’s anything they need. And if you’re not that close to the people next door? Free apps like OLIO are a great way to share food within your local community. You can donate almost anything, including raw, cooked or loose food, opened packets or products past their ‘best before’ (but not ‘use by’) dates.

Not so tech savvy? You can still share food with people nearby thanks to community fridges; these work in largely the same way, letting you donate sealed, packaged foods (including everything from cheese and eggs to fruit juices and yoghurt) to be picked up by members of the community. Hubbub even has a handy interactive map that lets you find your nearest community fridge.

8. Freeze it

We’ve all shoved half a loaf or the remnants of last night’s dinner in the freezer - but there are actually loads of foods you can safely store in there for a later date. (Some might even surprise you.)

Eggs

Yep, eggs! Although you can’t freeze them while they’re in their shell, you can crack eggs into a bowl and whisk them up until the yolk and white are almost combined. Then pop them in a labelled, airtight container and defrost them to make things like frittatas or omelettes. 

Butter and milk

If you live solo or don’t cook much, it can take a while to use up butter or milk. But don’t throw it away. You can wrap butter in things like tinfoil, beeswax wraps or freezer bags and defrost it in the fridge when you need it - or grate it from frozen to save some time. As for milk and dairy-free alternatives? They can be stored for months in the freezer. Just pour them into a container with a little breathing room, as the liquid will expand slightly when frozen.

Cheese

Ever tried to freeze cheese? To save it from going crumbly, grate it first and store it in a ziplock bag - or wrap small cubes in clingfilm to be defrosted and used as and when you need them.

Cooked rice and pasta

If your approach to measuring out rice and pasta is to ‘eyeball it’, you can often end up with a little (or a lot) left over. But good news - you can easily freeze them both. Al dente (or slightly undercooked) pasta works best for freezing so it doesn’t go starchy when you defrost it, and if you drizzle it with a little olive oil first, it won’t stick together in the freezer either (phew). For rice, make sure it’s completely cooled and store it in a microwaveable container to freeze as soon as possible after cooking. Freezing it from fresh makes sure it’s safe to eat once defrosted - just ensure it’s piping hot! 

Wine

You read that right. Just like water, wine is easy to freeze - but it’ll work best for wines that taste better chilled, like rosé and white. Freezing it in the bottle runs the risk of the glass shattering, though, so pour it into an ice cube tray. That way it’s easy to portion out when it comes to defrosting it, too.

9. Take it with you

Taking food with you is a great idea whether you’re staying with friends or family, renting a cottage or just have a long journey to contend with (particularly if you’ve got kids in tow). Either take your ingredients to cook with when you arrive, or pre-make sandwiches and other snacks before you leave the house. That’ll save you from buying soggy sarnies at the airport, too. Phew.

What about scraps that can’t be eaten?

Well, it’s time to get crafty. Got a green finger? You can use up your food scraps by making your own compost at home. It’s much easier than you might think, too. Or, if you’ve got a free afternoon, get your family or flatmates together to make bird feeders for your garden or balcony. You can repurpose empty yoghurt pots and fill them with foods like raisins, cooked rice and grated cheese (you can even add a little chilli powder to put off squirrels).

And if you absolutely must throw things away…

Check whether food recycling operates in your area, and request a food caddy if so (make sure to remove all packaging first - even things like compostable cups - before throwing any food in there). This ensures your food waste is reused for things like electricity (yep, really!) and fertiliser. Much better than ending up in landfill.