Keep food fresh for longer! Storage tools.

Top tips

Try our top tips and ideas for making the most of the food we buy. Find out what types of food can be frozen and how to make your fridge a true food saving hero. Why not share your own tips to reduce food waste with fellow Love Food Hate Waste supporters.

Our tips for Herbs

  • Freezing herbs

    It’s worth freezing herbs that you use regularly: mint, parsley, chives, and tarragon, for example. Wash and dry them before freezing whole in freezer bags, or chopped in ice cube trays covered with water. Tip frozen cubes into a freezer bag. Store for up to six months.

  • Cheap and healthy batch cooking

    Submitted by Gemma Parnell, Bedfordshire

    Bulk up meals like pasta bakes, curry and chilli con carne with beans, pulses vegetables and potatoes. It's cheaper healthier and it means you can use up the rest of the vegetables in the fridge! I always make at least one extra portion to freeze when cooking, and I make food for my baby at the same time.

  • Great soup from fridge oddments

    Submitted by Merryl Cook, Heaton Moor, Stockport

    Gather up all the bits from your fridge - coarse outside lettuce leaves, that bendy carrot, bit of onion, green tops of leeks and spring onions, a few herbs, etc, etc. Put in a pan with water to cover and a stock cube or meat jelly or gravy if you have some leftover and boil until the veg are soft. Whizz in processor or liquidiser. The French call this 'Garbure' and it's almost always delicious and different each time. Can be thickened with leftover potato, or some small pasta shapes can be added, or a cooked chopped bacon rasher. Soy sauce and a slowly poured beaten egg will make it Chinese-ish. Curry paste,and garlic, or grated cheese, or mushroom ketchup ... almost any mixture you invent will taste better than a tin of soup, and it's practically cash- and additive-free!

  • Aromatic herb oils

    Herbs with softer leaves, such as tarragon and basil, tend to discolour. Don’t throw them away but make a lovely scented oil; finely chop the basil or tarragon and add to a bottle of olive oil, keep in the fridge for a few days to allow the herbs to infuse the oil then sieve and discard the herbs, pour the oil back into the bottle and use the lovely herb scented oil for dressing and flavouring fish, chicken and cheese dishes.

  • Keeping coriander fresh

    Submitted by Jen Clews, Australia

    Instead of putting your coriander in the veg crisper drawer, half fill an old coffee jar with cold water, put in the coriander and cover with a (recycled!) plastic bag held with an elastic band. Keep in the door of your fridge, change the water every few days and it will keep well.

  • Salad storage

    Submitted by Cath Marsland, Stockport

    I threw away the drawers that came in the bottom of my fridge and replaced with long thin plastic sealable boxes now my salad ingredients stay fresher for days longer.

  • Coriander

    Submitted by Jaqui Van Der Hoeven, WEST YORKS

    Have a look at your local asian store if possible , around here it's about £1 for three large bunches. (less than 1/4 of supermarket price)Freeze the remainder whole in a re-useable plastic bag or box then just take out of the freeezer...bash with a rolling pin before adding to recipe, it crumbles perfectly, much better than chopping and retains it's taste 100%!

  • Coriander and lemon grass

    Submitted by Claire, London

    If you've bought a bunch of coriander and have a lot left over, freeze it in a sandwich bag and then crumble it into curries etc. The stalks survive freezing particularly well, but do it quickly or it defrosts and goes soggy rather than crumbling. Lemon grass also freezes well, and you can cut thin slices off when it's frozen and put it back in the freezer.

  • Parsley

    Submitted by Liz Rowles, Bath

    If you buy a large bunch of parsley which often works out cheaper than small packets, you can wash it, chop it up finely and put it in small containers in the freezer. This is always ready to add to sauces and or a quick garnish.

  • Parsley

    Submitted by Abigail N., Israel

    Fresh parsley, cleaned, washed and dried well, will keep for over 10 days in a tightly closed plastic box between layers of paper towel

  • Bagged Salads

    Submitted by Danni van der Walt, Bristol

    If you transfer your bagged salad leaves into a airtight container that is lined with kitchen roll this will help remove the excess moisure. Your salad with be crisp and dry and it will extents the life of the salad enormously.

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