5 Tips to avoid food waste with blue apron

I read a statistic the other day that said “Americans aren’t eating about 40% of the food we buy.” That is a lot of wasted food! I don’t know about you but I start to get stressed when I have to throw out food that went bad. When I start to notice something is going to expire I get creative and think of ways to use it or freeze it.

We do eat and love leftovers and rarely have food waste, but it does happen to the best of us. I notice when I go to the grocery store without a list or a meal plan for the week that is when I have food that gets wasted. After reading that statistic on food waste I started to look for and think of ways to avoid food waste. I partnered with Blue Apron to come up with 5 tips to avoid food waste.

I got my food delivery from Blue Apron and decided to make the most of every piece of food they sent with our meal.

First of all we got two meals that fed a family of 4. There was plenty of food for all of us including my baby, so really 5 of us. Also we got the delivery on Thursday and that is the day my sisters got into town for the weekend. I was starting to stress about using the food, not wanting to waste it. So I looked  online at blueapron.com and it said “their chefs pick the freshest ingredients so their meals will last in the fridge for a week”! We ended up making this on Tuesday night, 6 days after the delivery and everything looked like it did on day one.

Blue Apron offered me a special to share with my readers-

The first 25 readers from my blog can get THREE FREE MEALS off of your first Blue Apron order just by clicking HERE

This is what we got to make and how it turned out-

Braised Chicken with Spinach and Mashed Potatoes

Salmon Piccata with Orzo and Broccoli

We loved it ALL. I really liked that we could make a few tweaks to fit our needs. For instance the chicken recipe said to cover it in flour and cook it. I skipped that step and just cooked it without the flour. All of the ingredients are so flavorful that it really didn’t need it.

Tips on Avoiding Food Waste-

Tip #1- Freeze Spinach that is starting to wilt or go bad. I simply put mine in a freezer zip lock bag. Use frozen spinach for smoothies or in spaghetti sauce or in soups.

Tip #2- Freeze your bread or baked goods. I have done this for years. I always buy two loaves of bread and freeze one of them. You could even freeze half of one loaf to avoid waste. I defrost mine in the fridge and actually keep it there. Freezing cookies and backed goods is another great way to avoid eating too many and to avoid waste.

Tip #3- Use all of the broccoli. I trim off the ends of the broccoli and use a hand held spiralizer or put the broccoli ends in a food processor. These are great sautéed and added to eggs, a quiche, stir-fry, soup, really anything that calls for veggies.

Tip #4- Make healthy chips with the skins of the potatoes. These are SO tasty. I can’t believe I wasted SO many potato skins before! These make a really good appetizer too while you are waiting for food to cook. Beware they are gobbled up quickly! My kids loved them.

Recipe for Potato Skin Chips

• Wash your potatoes and peel the potatoes
• Lay the potato skins out on a baking sheet on top of parchment paper or a greased pan
• Spray or drizzle olive oil over the potato skins. I used Organic Olive Oil Spray. You don’t want to soak them- just lightly cover.
• Sprinkle with salt
• Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.

Tip #5- Use a food service like Blue Apron. Using Blue Apron you get the exact ingredients you need for a meal and you avoid over buying when you go to the grocery store.

Remember to click HERE to get THREE FREE MEALS on your first Blue Apron order!

I honestly love Blue Apron. I like that the recipes are so easy to follow I can have my 9 year old help me do a couple of things while I help the other kiddos under my feet.

Hopefully these tips help you to avoid food waste. Love hear how you prevent food waste, leave me a comment below!

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