18 Recipes That Use Food Scraps to Make the Most of Your Ingredients

It never feels good to throw food away. Whether you're tossing scraps from a batch of mashed potatoes or peels from bananas Foster, it’s always a win to stretch those pennies just a little bit further. It might come as a surprise to find all the ways that you can use odd bits of waste, from ingenious appetizers to creative sauces and sides. We’ve rounded up some of our favorite tricks for using various scraps headed to the compost bin so you can perform feats of culinary magic and save a buck, too. For example, many people toss the tough broccoli stems in favor of the dark green crowns, but the stems have a lot of flavor and a great texture if prepared right. Peel away the hardy exterior and include them in a creamy, cheesy potato gratin.

Choosing the right kind of lemons is key to making this whole-lemon lemonade, where you can blend the entire fruit — skin and all — to make the drink. If you like your lemonade on the tart side, start with half the amount of sugar and slowly add more to taste.

Freeze or bake whole bananas to soften the skins and blend them right into this moist cake batter. The peels add both fiber and flavor to the cake, which gets topped with a fluffy brown sugar frosting.

Just because greens have started to wilt, doesn’t mean they’re no longer fit to eat. While you may not be able to restore their crispiness, you can turn them into a flavorful, savory green jam to serve with fish or spread on toast.