Zero Waste Recipes – Vegetable Skin Crisps
Looking for zero waste recipes? These Vegetable Skin Crisps are a fun and delicious snack! Also a great way to get your kids to eat the skins! You can use whatever (edible) vegetable skins you have: potato, sweet potato, carrot, beet… They’ll be delicious no matter what! A quick scrub before you peel your veggies is all you need.
Food waste is a huge issue in this country. It is estimated that between 30-40 percent of our food supply ends up as waste. That adds up to about a pound of food waste per person, per day.
You know the usual culprits: an apple peel, a bag of spinach you had intentions of eating, half of an sandwich your kid wouldn’t touch today, something unidentifiable from the back of the fridge from who-knows-when.
While some food waste is unavoidable, we can certainly take steps to reduce this number. And we should. All that loss adds up to roughly $680 billion annually. That’s a number I can’t quite wrap my head around, but I DO know that each of us is throwing an absurd amount of our own hard-earned paycheck right in the trash – or in my case, you put it in the refrigerator for a couple weeks until it wilts away and THEN you throw it in the trash!
More Zero Waste Recipes
I do make efforts to avoid wasting food, or at least get an extra mile out of it, when I can. Here are a few of my favorite low or zero waste recipes you might also like:
- Vegetable Broth from kitchen scraps
- Dried Bananas – a great way to get extra shelf life out of them!
- Homemade Breadcrumbs – using the heel of the bread!
- Creamy Braised Beet Greens – don’t toss the greens!
- Radish Greens Hummus – speaking of greens!
- Citrus Charred Radish Pods – for when you forget about your radishes and they go to seed (oops!)
- Carrot Top Tabbouleh – more greens!
- Green Tomato Soup – for the end of your growing season
In general, I try not to peel my fruits and vegetables if the skins are edible. They provide some great nutrition, extra fiber, and they’re delicious! But sometimes I don’t want the peel – like when I’m making mashed potatoes or something.
So, that’s why I love Vegetable Skin Crisps! They’re crispy and delicious, and an ultra fun way to save your hard earned dollars from the trash! Just make sure you scrub the skins clean before peeling your veggies. It will help if they’re dry before you start, too.
You’ll want to watch these, starting around the 15 minute mark. Smaller pieces will be done and burning long before the bigger pieces are browning up!
If you try Vegetable Skin Crisps, or any other of our zero waste recipes, let me know in the comments!
Vegetable Skin Crisps
A fun and delicious way to decrease your food waste, and save your hard-earned money from the trash!
Ingredients
- 2 cups (roughly) clean and dry Vegetable Skin strips
- 1 tsp Corn Starch
- 1 tsp Everything Bagel Seasoning
- 1 tsp Olive Oil
Instructions
To Prep the Vegetable Skins
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Scrub all the vegetables to be peeled well, with a scrub brush if necessary. Allow the vegetables to dry, or blot them dry with a clean dish towel.
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Peel the vegetables with a peeler into a clean bowl.
To Make the Vegetable Skin Crisps
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Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
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Place the vegetable skins in a zipper seal bag (for truly zero waste, use a reusable zipper bag, or simply toss in a bowl with tongs), and add corn starch. Toss the bag around until all the corn starch is combined with the skins.
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Add the Everything Bagel seasoning and olive oil to the bag and toss to combine.
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Empty the bag onto a baking sheet lined with a reusable silicon liner (or parchment), into a single layer, and separate the strips as much as possible.
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Bake 15-20 minutes, depending on the type of skins you have, until browned and crisp (they will crisp a little more as they cool). Carrot skins will take less time, potato skins more.
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