Low(er) Plastic Kitchen Routines

Tips for Reducing Plastic Food Packaging

One of the hardest frontiers of reducing plastic is in the kitchen. Bathroom products are fairly straightforward— find what works for you, rinse, and repeat. For household goods, small businesses and secondhand sellers are often willing to ship plastic-free, and an increasing number of companies (ranging from the mattress company Earthfoam to household goods at Package Free Shop) make shipping plastic-free their default. And, of course, there’s always local Buy Nothing groups, Facebook marketplace, and, if you’re extraordinarily lucky, a handful of local shops to acquire other household items you might need without the extra packaging.

The kitchen, on the other hand? Nearly 40% of global plastic production is used for food and drink packaging, and it can be notoriously challenging to find everyday products sans plastic packaging— particularly in suburbs or food deserts. Of course, the first priority is feeding your family nourishing food, even if it comes from a package. But even when reducing plastic packaging in the kitchen is perhaps the hardest frontier to tackle from an individual perspective, it is likely to be the one with the largest individual impact.

The most realistic guideline for my relationship to plastic in the kitchen is this: Do what I can, and give myself grace where I can’t. Some weeks, this looks like homemade pizza dough, fresh produce, and glass milk from the co-op; other weeks, well… let’s just say I’m also wrangling two kids under 5.

But there are a few hacks that have made it easier to reduce plastic in our daily routine:

Freezer Meals

This, friends, is the real secret. I make big batches of a particular food— think, half a dozen pot pies— and freeze what I can so we have easy meals to reach for when the day gets away from us. Not all foods are freezer friendly, so try freezing a small batch of your favorite foods first to see how it goes.

Here are a few freezer recipes that have worked well for us: Broccoli Cheddar Soup, Chicken Pot Pie, Lasagna (ours is a secret family recipe— maybe I’ll share one day!), Meatballs, Enchiladas, and Soft Pretzels (though these rarely last long enough in our house to make it to the freezer).

I mostly freeze in Pyrex (though I recently invested in similar glass containers with bamboo lids), Souper Cubes for soups and sauces, and Stasher bags. 

Look for places you can swap from plastic to glass packaging so you don’t have to make literally everything yourself.

I used to make my own pizza sauce— I’m good at it, and it’s incredibly easy to do (not to mention, pizza sauce freezes well!). But I recently took the pressure off myself by buying pizza sauce in a glass jar to keep on hand for days that I don’t have the time or energy to start from scratch. Applesauce? I made it once, and a bag of apples later, I buy Thrive Market’s applesauce in a glass jar instead. This is probably for the best: Since my girls go through two to three jars of applesauce a week, I doubt I’d have time to write to you if I had to core a dozen apples on a daily basis.

Aluminum packaging has a lower carbon footprint than glass, but some aluminum cans have concerning plastic liners (either BPA or, more likely, a less-tested BPA alternative), so I personally lean towards glass when possible. Both aluminum and glass are infinitely recyclable (unlike plastic), so your preference may look different based on your personal priorities.

Have sweet and salty snacks on hand to satisfy cravings.

Rarely are your cravings truly food-specific— for example, a craving for Doritos is probably actually just a craving for something generally salty or with a bit of a kick. So try keeping easy snacks on hand to accommodate your cravings. For example, I normally keep homemade cookie dough (portioned into small servings) in Souper Cubes in the freezer, ready to be made at a moment’s notice.

(But also, try giving yourself and your family members a “hall pass”— a handful of snacks that you can buy in packaging guilt-free, to make your habit change more likely to stick for the long haul).

A quick note on toddler snacking: As a parent, I feel like this deserves its own category because toddler snacking happens every approximately 2.5 seconds. For my own sanity— and because food waste drives me up a wall— we try to stick to fruit/ veggies (ha!), yogurt, applesauce, granola, and toast for any morning snacks (in addition, of course, to whatever was offered at breakfast). After nap is the time for either homemade goodies or a “crunchy” snack like crackers that is more likely to be packaged (although there are great dupe recipes for things like Goldfish crackers).

Photo by Rebecca Matthews on Unsplash

Eat in-season fruits and veggies.

This means leaning in to citrus fruits in January, blackberries in June, and juicy apples and pumpkin in the fall. While we don’t always eat purely in season, it’s easier to find unpackaged fruits/ veggies if you time it right— and it’s way yummier to have corn on the cob than corn in a can. 

Scaffold your baking and DIY cooking skills.

It’s easy to grate cheese, for example, or make homemade sour cream, and build up to more challenging swaps. And once you’ve baked with yeast once, you’ll be comfortable doing anything from homemade bread to pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, burger buns, and soft pretzels. (If kneading dough sounds difficult or time intensive, just know that a dough hook on a stand mixer can do all the work for you).

I’ve linked to quite a number of online recipes, but Alana Chernila also has a beautiful cookbook resource, The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making. If you happen to be vegan, The Homemade Vegan Pantry looks similarly promising. Anne-Marie Bonneau of the

Zero-Waste Chef

also has an extensive online recipe list and fantastic cookbook. The best swaps also won’t require you to buy complicated gadgets— you can make virtually anything with a hand mixer (although admittedly, a stand mixer is easier) and a stovetop.

And, of course, accept that making homemade bread when you are able to does not mean you can’t or won’t buy store bough bread ever again. Every little step counts.

Meet me in the comments: What are your favorite low-waste recipes or cookbook resources?