How to Make Food Last During Lockdown

You may still be doing your weekly food shop. Or, like many, you might have decided to make fewer visits to the supermarket during lockdown.

If you’re firmly in the latter camp, we thought you might benefit from some advice on how to ensure the food you already have in your kitchen cupboards. Read on for the My Appliances team’s top tips…

Make Better Use of Your Freezer

Currently, you might use your freezer for shop-bought goods, like pizza and chips from the frozen aisle of the supermarket. But you can freeze a lot more foods like you may think, which will ensure they are ready to defrost and cook when you’re ready. This busy mum of three, as featured in The Sun, says batch cooking has been vital during lockdown.

She tells The Sun website: “It’s not just saved us money but it’s helped massively time wise as I have a very active toddler and while my partner is at work it’s hard to watch her and cook a meal from scratch.

“Since the lockdown I’ve had a week’s worth of meals already prepped in the freezer already. It’s so important to me to not waste food, especially with what’s happening right now.”

You could batch cook meals shortly after shopping, too, adding them to freezer-appropriate containers once cooled and saving them for later.

You can freeze everything from eggs to milk – even cake – meaning you should never have to throw anything that is past its best in the fridge.

Get Creative in the Kitchen

Are those bananas black? Or perhaps your bread is looking a bit stale. Before you throw anything out, head to Google and check if it can indeed be used for anything else.

Black bananas are absolutely perfect for use in banana bread, so find yourself a good recipe (we can recommend this one, which has more of a cake than loaf consistency and is so easy to bake) and save them from the bin!

Stale bread can be used to make croutons for your homemade soup – or you could even use it to throw together bread and butter pudding. Perfectly nostalgic and perfectly delicious!

Plus, the BBC Good Food website suggests the latter recipe works best with day-old bread.

Compile an Inventory

Do you really know what’s lurking in the back of your kitchen cupboards? By taking everything out and giving it a good sort through, you’ll not only get chance to declutter but to plan some meals for the next few weeks.

Check expiry dates carefully, throwing anything that isn’t fit to eat.

Next, write a list of everything you have. You could split your food into categories – anything from meal accompaniments (pasta, rice and noodles, for example) to sauces and tins. That way you’ll be able to better plan what will work with what; you may find you have more in your cupboards than you first thought

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Until next time…