If you hate cooking as much as I do, meal planning is the sanest way to get through a zero waste week. By spending just one day chopping, mixing, boiling, baking, sweating, burning, panicking, and proportioning everything out in grab-and-go containers, you can spend the remaining 6 days cook-free. It’s basically like eating leftovers all the time! (I really loved leftover night as a kid)
Plus, it’s a great way to save money if you’re on a budget.
Rather than bore you with a complete how-to-meal-plan tutorial (you can literally find those anywhere on the internet), I’m just going to stick with the few lessons I learned on the job.
Stock Easy (No-Cook) Snacks
Three reasons for snacks.
First, I screw up a lot of recipes. When you’re literally cooking every meal you eat, messing up is as maddening as it is hunger-inducing. When your oat muffins turn into rocks after just twelve hours, you can’t go wrong with a simple banana as back-up.
Second, I get tired of eating the same thing every day. Even if a recipe goes well, I want to swap it out for something else at least once a week to avoid going crazy.
Third, it’ll take awhile to find out how much food you need to make on a weekly basis. Having too much is only a problem if you’re truly zero waste, while having too little is only a problem if you have no supplements for in between meals. Solution: snacks.
Only Try ONE New Recipe Each Week
I like the idea of cooking. As a result, it’s easy to get carried away watching cooking channels on YouTube. Unfortunately, biting off more than I can chew often ends in me having nothing to eat at all because it can take 3 to 5 times of trying a recipe to get it right. There’s nothing wrong with sticking with the classics. Like fried eggs or oatmeal for breakfast rather than a full vegan casserole when you’re already trying a new pasta salad for lunch and black bean burgers for dinner.
The Freezer Is Your Friend
Cooking takes time.
So. much. time.
That’s why if something that can be frozen (such as soups, which are a godsend to any meal planner), I make a double batch and freeze it for later. This habit really helps with variety once you get three or four things pre-made and if you can swing a sale or two at your local grocery store, it can save you even MORE money.
However, there is a catch for freezing in a zero waste lifestyle. Glass does not deal well with vast, fast temperature changes. Growing up, we always used plastic bags or Tupperware for freezing our food, so mason jars were a learning curve for me. Luckily they’re cheap, so breaking one or five wasn’t a dip in my wallet, only points against my trash tracking. I found this video very helpful, but also never fill a mason jar above the shoulder line before you freeze it:
Have Fun
Cook with friends. Watch Gilmore Girls or Buffy reruns while waiting for the oven to preheat. Dance around the kitchen in an apron and your underwear. Just don’t drink alcohol if you’re using knives.
Most importantly: never forget to laugh at yourself when you screw up.