Turning bananas into bacon

Meet the trash snack I rather enjoyed

Aug 07, 2024

Two weekends ago, I couldn’t close the freezer drawer.

When we bought our current fridge, I wasn’t sure about a drawer freezer. When I voiced my apprehension, my husband said, “Why would they make so many fridges with drawers if they sucked?” I thought he made a good point.

But after three years, we agree: Freezer drawers suck.

Things gradually wiggle their way to the bottom where you will never see them again until you move, or have some sort of horrific power outage, forcing you to toss everything. We had way too much shit in this freezer.

Same for the fridge.

And the pantry.

And the other pantry.

And our garden.

And spice cabinet.

I put a freeze on grocery shopping for the week.

Aside from buying food for my kid’s crappy lunches, my husband and I agreed: no other food was to be brought into the house.

Here’s where I’d like to tell you how hard this task became. How I needed to dig deep into the NYT’s culinary archives to figure out how to turn disparate items into a passable meal— like Parmesan cheese rind, frozen hot dog buns, a can of green chilies.

But not, oh no no no. Turns out it was so easy. We ate like royalty all week long. Why? Because we’d become lazy, opting to buy new fancy ingredients instead of looking to see what we already had. We apparently already lived in a grocery store.

Look at this delicious salsa I found in the pantry. RIP Paul Newman.

I sauteed venison from our freezer (we got a LOT after my husband got two deer last fall), which I turned into tacos, into a salad, into enchiladas.

I grated the garden zucchinis and mixed them with hashbrowns unearthed from the freezer for some damn good fritters (here’s a similar version of the recipe, though I did use egg in mine).

We made these super delicious air fryer salmon bites with a filet of fish I pretended not to see every time I opened the freezer.

I made overnight oats (I’m still confused whether or not I am supposed to eat cold or hot) with lightly expired almond milk, a Costco-sized bag of gluten-free oats, and some chia seeds that I once NEEDED… but never got around to actually using.

I honestly didn’t even get around to making anything weird until six full days in.

Behold: Banana Bacon.

Because I needed to use up a lot of garden and vegetable scraps, I often turned to the PlantYou Scrappy Cooking cookbook by Carleigh Bodrug.

It’s a vegan cookbook I got a few months ago, and it’s honestly great (I’m not even vegan!). But when I saw the recipe for vegan bacon, I thought our friend Carleigh might be smoking something definitely vegan.

As someone who just ate chicken for lunch, let me tell you: this cookbook is LIT!

I am a believer that you should always order the weird thing on the menu, or make the weird recipe. It’s there for a reason, right? So after I turned super ripe bananas into banana muffins (had all the ingredients already, because of course I did, I am a food hoarder!), I set the peels aside for vegan bacon.

Yes, you read that correctly: The main ingredient is BANANA PEEL.

Though I would never, ever think to eat a banana peel (whhhhhy!?!), when you’re vegan, you’re way more willing to get weird in the kitchen. And because none of my new BFF Carleigh’s other recipes have let me down, I decided to trust her.

Here the basic recipe:

Take 2-3 banana peels, scrubbed clean. Use a spoon to scrape out any leftover banana. Cut each peel into 3-4 long strips.
Make the marinade: soy sauce, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, nutritional yeast, fresh parsley, and salt. Marinate peels for about 10 minutes.
Bake the peels at 400 on parchment paper for about 15 minutes.

Watch my Jacque Pepin-style culinary prowess here:

Even though I burnt them a little, I immediately loved that my house didn’t stink like actual bacon (let’s be real: the scent is overwhelming and takes forever to get out of your house). As for this being vegan bacon… well… they looked kinda like bacon? But didn’t taste like bacon. That said: they were totally delicious. More like banana jerky? I would make again, and maybe chop up as a crispy flavor bomb on a rice bowl or salad. They were fun!

A no-shopping food challenge does it for me: I love how it gets me thinking creatively, trying new things, saves money and food waste. Plus, now I have a new phrase for glass half-full life: Making bacon out of banana peels.

So… what’s your favorite weird recipe/food? Share with the rest of us!