Rethinking Waste In Your Kitchen: Unlocking Flavor, Savings, and Sustainability

Honoring every ingredient by cooking mindfully, rethinking food waste, and staying accountable to the impact of my work.

I’m listening to a Science Friday episode right now called “Where Does Plastic and Other Trash Go After We Throw It Away?” A conversation between journalist Alexander Clapp and host Flora Lichtman. It is scratching at questions I have had for years: What actually happens to our recycling? What is truly worth recycling anymore?

Clapp recently released his book Waste Wars: The Wild Afterlife Of Your Trash, and in it he explains how most of the “recycling” collected in the United States, and likely many other countries too, is auctioned off to poorer nations to be processed. The entire process is dangerous at every step. Plastics are heated and melted down in order to be repurposed. If you have ever burned coated cardboard or the edge of a marshmallow bag, you know the smell. That same toxic plume becomes someone’s daily air quality. Entire communities live and work in the fallout of this melting plastic.

Suggestions from his notes on the podcast say it may be better, less harmful overall, to throw away certain plastics instead of sending them into the melt and release system. Microplastics still exist either way, but slowly breaking down in a landfill might be the lesser evil. A grim thought, but an honest one.

Other materials are not much simpler. A waste removal company owner I met this summer told me that most glass recycling simply gets crushed and used as road base. Not glamorous, but still better than taking up volume in a landfill. Aluminum is one of the few wins in the system. It is easy to melt, easy to reuse, and far less toxic in its processing.

Garbage and recycling are things I confront every day in my work. My approach always circles back to the same mantra many of us grew up with.

REDUCE → REUSE → RECYCLE.

It is the first thing I think about whether I am in my own kitchen or cooking in someone else’s home. How can I minimize waste, and how can I use the product in front of me to it’s fullest potential? Waste reduction may only save you a few dollars per recipe, but that adds up in a restaurant scene and on a global scale. It also lends to the respect each raw ingredient deserves which keeps me honest about the impact of my work.

---

5 Ways I Reduce Waste in My Kitchen.

Beyond sourcing responsibly to support sustainability and regenerative practices, these are the key ways I apply waste-less principles in my kitchen and restaurant workflow.

Barbequed Fish Heads at Arca Tierra in Xochimilco, MX. With EM for Modelo.

1. Scrap Stocks and Broths

Vegetable Stock:

Onion skins and ends, garlic skins, apple peels, ginger scraps, fennel stalks, leek greens, parsley stems, carrot peels. Wash everything first. Store scraps in a freezer bag or container until you have enough to fill a six quart pot. Cover with water and simmer for one hour.

Meat or Seafood Stock or Broth:Use a single type of bones or combine them with your vegetable scraps. Think fish bones, ham bones, turkey carcasses, crab, shrimp or lobster shells, or leftover rotisserie chicken. Poultry usually need two to six hours, fish and seafood will be 1-2 hours. Beef and pork extract best with 24 hours or more, or a long pressure cook, which extracts collagen, minerals, and flavor fully. Simmer very gently, never boil!

Always add aromatics. Whole black pepper, star anise, cloves, and woody herbs like thyme, rosemary, marjoram, bay leaf, and sage. If you seem light on something like garlic, just add a few fresh cloves.

2. Rendered Fats

Animal fats are known as Saturated Fats, which are generally labeled as the ‘bad guys’ due to links to heart disease. However, I look at this from a lense of moderation- and the fact that animal fats are far less processed than trans fats or seed oils.

Bacon fat is the Northwest classic, and I always save the bacon fat for something else. It’s distinctly flavorful - use it for frying eggs, making pancakes, sautéing onions, building soups, and adding depth to sauces. It is a simple, economical, and intensely flavorful way to keep ingredients moving.

Other rendered fats you can save:

• Chicken schmaltz

• Duck or goose fat

• Beef tallow

• Pork lard

Cut up pieces of fat/fatty meat to a manageable size and render (cook slowly) in a pot with wide surface area. Add water to help heat the whole batch and stir often. Strain with a fine sieve and store in the fridge or freezer and use as you would oil or butter.

Use rendered fats for:

• Confit duck legs in duck fat

• Confit mushrooms or garlic in pork or beef tallow

• Preserve steaks in layers of beef tallow

• Fry up potatoes, rice crisps, chicken or tempura - make sure to use a sieve with a bowl below, and then a paper towel to absorb as much fat after cooking

• Sauteing: use 1-2 spoonfuls per lb of meat or vegetables

• Braising meats: 1/4 fat to 3/4 braising liquid

Make sure to strain cooled fat or oil through a fine sieve, chill and store in a cool or chilled area. Make sure animal fats do not contain any liquid or they will go rancid much faster. I love this fat strainer to help with the job.

Ginkgo Food Journals is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Fermenting Jars of Tuna (Cactus Fruit) in Mexico City

3. Preservation Techniques

Preservation is a lifesaver for waste reduction. It also builds your kitchen library of flavors, and keeps things interesting.

Here are some techniques to experiment with:

• Fermenting! Common ones are Cabbage (kimchi or sauerkraut), Peppers (hot sauces), Lentils or soybeans (miso), leafy greens (nozawana), fish or uni for fish sauce - just to name a few

• Pickling vegetables (cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots, onions) or fruits like pineapple or watermelon rind

• Dehydrating mushrooms and fruit abundance - or anything really

• Making compound butters or infused oils with chopped herbs or garlic

• Freezing leftover coconut milk or tomato paste in tablespoon portions

• Salt curing egg yolks (to shave over dishes), citrus peels (seasoned salt), fish skins/livers (Bacalhau)

• Toasting leftover bread for bread crumbs or croutons

• Oil infusions of leftover herbs, chiles, scallion bottoms

• Turning overripe fruit into shrubs, syrups, or vinegars

• Candying citrus peel, especially pomelo

• Infused Syrups or Shrubs with sugar and vinegar, with things like flower blossoms, woody herbs, barks or teas

• Jam and chutney making with fruit on its last legs

Each method stretches the life of your ingredients while expanding what you can create.

Duck Liver Pate with Apples, Sourdough and Fennel Flower Salad

4. Trying Something New with Offal and “Unpopular” Cuts

A huge part of minimizing waste comes from embracing the cuts and parts we often overlook.

A few approachable ideas - even if you don't make these at home, order them if you see them on a menu!

• Chicken or duck liver pâté

• Heart mousse or heart ragù

• Blood sausage (Boudin noir)

• Beef Tongue (lengua) tacos

• Collagen rich cuts turned into terrines or confit

Josh Niland’s Whole Fish book is the ultimate inspiration here. He explores ways to use the entire fish, including making ice cream with fish eyeball gelatin. It sounds wild, but gelatin is already in most commercial ice cream. The point is to use the whole animal rather than pretending the other parts do not exist. There are loads of other folks out there that I would love to recommend for inspiration and recipes! I will link a few below.

5. Reuse is the Quiet Workhorse

Reusing is the backbone of sustainable cooking. It is not glamorous, but it is effective.

Glass jars, takeout containers, bottles, lids, plastic deli quarts, pastry boxes are the obvious. Nearly anything can have a second life. Soak off labels in warm water. Coconut oil removes sticky residue easily. I reuse containers for freezing stocks, storing spice blends, holding pickles or sauces, at home and in client kitchens. But also, don’t hoard if you don’t have the space.

Leftover Lobster? Nah. Lobster + Ricotta Canapés

“Odds and Ends” and Leftovers

One of the most overlooked forms of waste is the small stuff. If you have a leftover lobster tail you don’t want to toss, or the last splash of milk before vacation, half a lemon, or a single cooked chicken thigh, you can almost always turn those scraps into something useful. Here are easy some ideas:

• Leftover lobster becomes a quick bisque base, or a seafood salad for canapès, a rich seafood butter, or a topping for a simple pasta.

• The last of the milk can be turned into a quick ricotta by gently heating it with a splash of vinegar.

• Half a lemon can be added to your juice, water or the acid for a quick vinaigrette.

• A lone chicken thigh can be shredded into fried rice, added to congee, or folded into a breakfast hash.

• Uneaten vegetables make for the perfect omelette or quiche addition, all chopped up.

When you start thinking in terms of ingredients rather than “extras,” you realize how many meals begin with what you already have.

It is the small, daily practice that makes the biggest difference.

---

In the End.

When I think about waste, I think about responsibility and care. Care for the ingredient, care for the place I am cooking, and care for the people who are impacted by the choices we make as consumers. We cannot control global systems on our own, but we can control our habits. We can choose to waste less, to reuse more, and to treat our ingredients with respect rather than disposability.

If you have to toss: Compost when you can - New York finally started a composting system! You can implement a backyard compost bin if you have space, or use a countertop composter if you have the money.

Reducing waste is not about perfection. It is about paying attention. It is about small changes that add up over years of cooking. It is about cooking smarter, with more intention, and with the awareness that everything we throw away goes somewhere, and impacts someone.

Thank you for continuing to care.

Cheers,

Abigail