This chef offers you a tip for making anti-waste pickles without pickles

After learning to reuse stale bread and scraped vanilla pods, we don’t intend to stop on this good anti-waste momentum! Fortunately, we can count on chef Nabil Zemmouri and his Instagram account chef_n_zem. On the platform, he offers his community of fans many economical and easy-to-make recipes.

Accustomed to zero waste tips, in his latest video he published his method for making homemade pickles using exclusively the stem of a broccoli! “It’s really amazing how much better this is in taste and texture than store-bought burger pickles,” explains the network star chef. Here’s how to easily reproduce this recipe.

Don’t throw away your broccoli stems! Peel them with a vegetable peeler and cut them into slices of the same thickness as the traditional burger pickles you find in stores (around 1 millimeter). Salt them lightly and reserve them in a previously sterilized and clean jar with the aromatics of your choice. Here, the cook has opted for 3-4 small sprigs of dill, fennel grains and red berries but you are free to use whatever you like or the contents of your cupboards: chilli, black pepper… During Meanwhile, prepare in a saucepan, one volume of sugar to two of vinegar and three of water. In his recipe, the chef uses white balsamic vinegar but you can choose cider or rice vinegar if you prefer. Boil the mixture well and pour it while still boiling into the jar. You will then have to wait a few hours: allow at least 4 or 5 hours before tasting them, but know that they will be even better the next day. Super crunchy and fragrant, these zero waste pickles made from broccoli can be kept for up to 3 weeks in the refrigerator, practical!

This recipe for gherkin-style broccoli pickles was also suggested by star chef Jean-François Piège. During an interview, the cook also gave tips for recycling cheese rinds, coffee grounds and even stale croissants!