How to get the most out of your leftover purees, pastes, and sauces

Purees, pastes, and sauces are a must for breathing some much-needed flavour into our day to day meals.

But do we always use them up? The answer is no because many of us struggle to use them before they go off.

Even though we may only waste them in small amounts, it all adds up. Food waste is a huge problem, with 1.3billion tons of food being wasted each year. Not only is this shocking in itself, but the wasted food also emits greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. We’ve created Respect Food to encourage tackling the problem from its root: by reducing food wastage. Our technologies are specially formulated to help your food last longer. The IonFresh technology in Grundig fridges, for example, neutralises bacteria and odours, and our FullFresh+ technologies keep your food fresher for up to 3 times longer. Find out more here.

Check out these 3 handy tips for making the most of your leftover purees, pastes, and sauces.

1. Use them as ingredients
For soups, smoothies, and so much more. It’s always worth stretching the uses these types of foods can have, don’t be afraid to experiment! Fruit puree, for example, can be great for creating new and exciting variations on your favourite smoothies.

2. Keep them at the back of the fridge
If you know you’ll be using your leftover pastes and sauces over the next couple of days, keep them cold! Just make sure that you store them in an airtight container and not the original packaging, and store towards the back of the fridge so that they’re kept a constant, low temperature.

3. Freeze them
When it comes to purees, pastes, and sauces, there are two ways you can freeze them to lengthen their longevity. Freezing them in ice-trays means you can create delicious cubes of flavour to add to a smoothie or soup, or you can just freeze them into bulkier sizes. Tomato paste, for example, is only used sparingly for many recipes which leads to a lot of leftovers. Spread it over cling film and roll it into a cylinder. Store in an airtight container, and then when you want to use it, you can just cut off as much as you need before freezing it again. Grundig’s NoFrost freezer technology with DuoCooling will also make sure that your purees and sauces are frozen perfectly.

Keeping to these 3 useful tricks will allow you to keep your purees, pastes, and sauces around for longer and make sure that they’re used. Not only does this help you, but it decreases food waste too!

Sources:
http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Store-Left-over-Tomato-Paste/