Foundations of Zero Waste Cooking

This unit introduces foundational concepts and practical techniques for reducing food waste in home and small-scale professional kitchens, including sustainability principles, pantry management, basic cookery skills, and creative reuse of ingredients. It builds on prior basic kitchen skills and prepares learners for advanced recipe development, menu planning, and sustainability projects in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze personal and household food waste through a guided waste audit and identify the top three sources of avoidable waste with supporting data
• Apply pantry inventory and storage strategies to organize a working pantry, correctly label and store at least ten common items to extend shelf life, and implement meal-planning techniques to reduce spoilage
• Demonstrate foundational zero-waste culinary techniques—make basic homemade stock, prepare fresh bread crumbs, break down a whole chicken for multiple uses, execute pasta basics, and create common ingredient substitutions (e.g., buttermilk replacement)—in timed, assessed cooking tasks
• Evaluate and produce a one-week zero-waste meal plan that incorporates shared-plate strategies, zero-waste add-ins/swaps, and at least three reuse/composting methods (e.g., eggshells, vegetable trimmings), justifying choices with waste-reduction and resource-efficiency criteria