One of the most important parts of staying within your food budget is properly using the food you already have. It is easy to allow perishables to go to waste, but there is a simple way to make sure that you waste less.
While planning your meals, consider the items in your refrigerator and freezer that will not be good much longer and plan to use them in upcoming meals. Sometimes it is difficult to know what to do with certain food items, but it is much easier if you keep a list of how to use items that you find yourself consistently throwing out because they were wasted.
Making a list of each item and meals you most commonly use them in should help you plan around items that have short shelf-lives. Just start a notebook that you keep near your cookbooks and add a few meal ideas here and there. Here are a few ideas to get you started, but the best list will be the one you make yourself!
Tomatoes:
- š Tomato Salad
- š Regular salad
- š Deli-Style
- š Fresh Salsa
- š Pizza topper
- š Hamburger
- š Tomatoes with Mozzarella
- š Mac and Cheese or Fettuccini topper
- š Egg, Tomato, and Cheese Sandwich
- š Sun-Dry
Strawberries:
- š Strawberry sundae
- š Strawberry Milkshake
- š Strawberry Lemonade
- š Smoothie
- š Strawberry Preserves
- š Strawberry Pie
- š Strawberry Shortcake
- š Cut/Sweetened/Frozen
Chicken:
- š Chicken-noodle Soup
- š Chicken-potato soup
- š Chicken casserole
- š Chicken enchiladas/tacos/quesadillas/taquitos
- š Chicken salad sandwich
- š Chef’s Salad
- š Grilled chicken
- š Chicken stir fry
- š Chicken with Chinese sauce
- š Pan or Oven Fried Chicken
Other things you might want to add to your list are: avocados, bananas, celery, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, beef, pork, etc. The best thing about having a notebook handy like this is that you don’t have to worry about things going bad when you stock up on a sale.
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