Best Kitchen Tools to Fight Food Waste - CNET

If space is an issue, something like this quiet and powerful Hurom juicer takes up a smaller countertop footprint than most. With a high-quality juicer, everything from apples to zucchini can be salvaged before they brown and wilt. Toss in all those overripe fruits (remove the really bad parts first), or turn a large, daunting bunch of leafy greens into just a little bit of potent, green juice -- perfect for those pears you forgot about or that bag of kale you have no energy to cook. Mix with your milk or alt-milk of choice (almond and coconut are nice options) or balance out with other milder juices like that from cucumber, celery or apples.

The Anova vacuum sealer, for example, is designed for sous vide cooking, but also helps you out with preventing food waste in a few different ways. The most obvious use of a vacuum sealer is to remove oxygen from food -- this slows down the growth of mold and bacteria, extending the life of your groceries. Another way a vacuum sealer can help cut down on solid waste is by enabling better meal prep. The vacuum bags allow you to pack more individually sealed meals in the freezer than you can with unwieldy containers, making it easier to tackle that big bag of vegetables or the meat you buy in bulk (Costco steak, for example). Cook it all in one fell swoop, and store it away with those space-saving food-preserving bags.

For food storage, you'll want freezer trays with more capacity than your average ice tray. Also, spring for a tray with a lid since spilling leftover braising liquid is a much more involved cleanup than water. Silicone is the best material since it's easy to get clean and won't crack in the cold.

Get this multiuse water bath canner and you'll nearly everything you need to dip into this historical preservation process. (At-home canning typically uses jars, so you will need to buy these separately.) This kit uses a water bath to heat the jar contents, killing off bacteria and creating a vacuum seal to keep out air. Make preserves, salsas and more with your surplus fruits and veggies and store these all without taking up any precious refrigerator space.

If you like tangy flavors from live cultures, you can use the above kit for fermenting foods, but you'll have a simpler time with this Easy Fermenter Kit. Make fermented pickles, kimchi or any other probiotic-packed foods with this kit, which has special lids that let the fermentation gases out of jars. With a regular canning kit, you would need to "burp" the jars to prevent that gas from building up -- otherwise, you run the risk of an exploding-jar situation! With either kit, you're able to store up fruits and veggies before they go bad in a wonderfully folksy way and you might just turn into that person who always has a gift of pickles or preserves ready to go for birthdays or the holidays.

Ideal for dry goods, air-tight OXO Pop containers help you keep cereal, snacks and pasta organized and fresh. Storing foods in containers like these help you steer clear of those contentious conversations about this roommate that forgot to use the chip clip, or that family member who thinks rolling the bag top is good enough to prevent stale cereal (yeah, right!). And, with clear, neat containers, foods will stay visible and front of mind, making it more likely that you'll remember to use them.

If you have good heavy-duty storage bags on hand, you're more like to make a habit of keeping extra food and leftovers versus tossing it. Stasher bags are made from silicone so they're washable and reusable, and have a leak-proof seal. You can use them in the fridge or freezer and even cook in them (sous vide, steam or microwave), and they're dishwasher safe.