Sometimes the answer to the perpetual question of what’s for dinner? comes not from a recipe or a shopping list, but from the fruits and veggies languishing in your produce drawer. By embracing the idea of cooking what’s often called “root-to-shoot”—or getting experimental with the stems, roots, cores, peels, and imperfect parts that might end up in the compost or even worse, the landfill—I often turn a produce-drawer clean-out into a meal when provisions are running thin. I like to think of it as a tame, hyper-local version of dumpster diving. 

To me, root-to-shoot cooking is a culinary win-win—a way to conjure tasty plant-based meals and reduce food waste, which is a major contributor to climate change and often overlooked. It doesn’t hurt that using roots, seeds and peels can boost the nutrient profile of a dish, considering that research has found that “significant amounts of phytochemicals and essential nutrients are present in the seeds, peels, and other components of fruits and vegetables not commonly consumed.”

My latest root-to-shoot creation was an improvisational meal using almost every part of the produce hiding out in my fridge: a pomegranate whose husk had gone from bright red leather to tanned hide; weeks-old apples and Asian pears beginning to resemble oversize prunes; fresher bunches of rainbow chards and beets; a passable head of fennel; and a red onion of indeterminate age.

The result? A salad composed of beet and chard greens, roasted beet roots, and shaved fennel. I dressed it with a side relish of chard stems, beets stems, onion and pomegranate juice, and topped it with chopped fennel fronds. For a sweet finish, I oven-dried apple and pear wedges served with a jelly made from the fruit cores and seeds. 

Improv cooking

I tend to draw inspiration for my experiments from two cookbooks: the edgy manifesto Scraps, Wilts and Weeds: Turning Wasted Food Into Plenty by Noma cofounder Mads Refslund; and the pragmatic guide Root-to-Stalk Cooking: The Art of Using the Whole Vegetable by Bay Area food journalist Tara Duggan. In this case, Duggan’s chard stem relish inspired mine, but I improvised: incorporating beet stems, substituting pomegranate juice for vinegar, and adding not only chopped red onion, but also its skin, hoping it might lend some antioxidant properties. 

Root-to-shoot fuels the process of discovery, and the insights that come from figuring out how to use unfamiliar ingredients. It turns out that rainbow chard’s bow-legged stems showcase the plant’s jewel colors even more beautifully than its leaves, and that beet stems crunch with a sharp astringency quite different from its roots. My old, wrinkly apples somehow smell and taste more sweetly of the orchard than fresh ones do, while my Asian pears eat more like bland, watery jicama, having lost their subtle fruitiness. And, when I finally pierced the tough shell of the pomegranate, I was delighted to learn that even seeds too mealy to eat are surprisingly juicy. 

taking cues from the pros

Some inspiring high-end chefs are setting the pace for root-to-shoot cooking. I recently joined a dinner for food waste activists at Blue Hill restaurant in New York, where chef Dan Barber created dishes like Delicata Squash Vine Penne and Cocoa Husk Cream, in both cases centering the dishes on parts of the plant usually considered a byproduct. (For visual inspiration, check out Barber’s Instagram account, where you’ll find the likes of lettuce “turducken” (a vegetarian nod to the classic Southern technique of cooking a whole duck inside of a whole turkey); cherries dipped in beeswax; onion, sunchoke and knotweed shoots; spruce tops; Jerusalem artichoke flowers; immature pine cones; and sunflower stalk “marrow.”)

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, American chef Matt Orlando at Amass restaurant in Copenhagen, describes how reducing waste has “become a sport” in his kitchen, with cooks competing to develop innovative uses for byproducts. “My team is in a space where we’ve never been before, exploring and finding new flavors,” he told me.  “Byproducts have the power to inspire much more creativity than a standard, pristine cut of meat.”

give trash a chance

Root-to-shoot can be a slippery concept. What’s normal for one chef or home cook, say eating beet leaves or using seeds to make jelly, might feel radical or weird to another. What we consider to be edible can also be quite arbitrary, reflecting our habits, culinary traditions, and product availability. Some supermarket shoppers may never even see the leaves attached to the beets, or have the chance to taste the stems.

We don’t need to execute root-to-shoot perfectly to be worthy of its ideals. In the years since I first harnessed my dislike of food waste into a key feature of meal planning, I’ve learned many tricks to working with produce that is a bit past its prime. I’ve also had lots of fails along the way—just ask my kids about the appallingly pungent turnip green soup I tried to serve for dinner recently.

Even if all our experiments won’t pan out, the fun can be in trying, especially knowing the ingredients were destined for the compost bin anyway. In the end, I figure that if chefs can garner Michelin stars and charge premium prices for their vegetable scraps, the least I can do is use mine to get dinner on the table. 

Try root-to-shoot improvising on these Stone Pier Press favorites

How to experiment at home

Focus on dishes like salads, casseroles and soups.  These easy-to-assemble dishes are forgiving and versatile because they use a variety of ingredients. 

Give your produce a bit of TLC. Revive wilted or wrinkled vegetables by hydrating them. Soak the whole plant or place freshly cut stems in cold water for an hour. Trim away any unsightly, mushy, or oxidized parts. 

Taste early and often. Taste your ingredients raw (if safe to do so) and along the way to get a sense of what flavors are there, and what flavors to add— whether salt, acid, sweetness, or spices. Decide what to use raw and what needs the magic of heat to improve its flavor and texture. Try not to add too many pantry ingredients until you are fairly confident in the dish—there’s nothing like trying to save old produce and ending up with a failed dish that also wastes a cup of olive oil!

Rely on your senses more than expiration dates. Did you know that expiration dates are “not an indicator of the product’s safety and are not required by Federal law” according to the USDA? Look for visible mold or off smells to decide what to use and what to toss, whether produce, meat or dairy products.

Experiment with some caution. Just as many seeds, leaves, and roots concentrate nutrients, they can also carry toxins, likely an evolutionary survival skill for the plant. When in doubt about whether a new part is safe to eat, a little internet research goes a long way! 

Susan Miller-Davis is a Stone Pier Press News Fellow and Principal of Infinite Table, based in the Bay Area.

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