Cooking Challenge

2025 Cooking Challenge

About the contest

Join us for a national challenge to reward and spread the word about creative, low-waste cooking. Pssst…we have prizes.

Food Waste Prevention Week is hosting the second annual challenge to highlight the ingenious food-waste-fighting work going on in household kitchens across the country. Everyone wins when we make the most of food, but the submitted recipes that most excite our judges (and they’re pretty excitable, so don’t stress) will earn some nifty prizes. And EVERY entry will be entered in a raffle.

How to Enter

From March 3 to April 16, anytime you make a meal that helps you rescue food that might have been tossed, tell us about it by filling out the form in the link above. We love and welcome photos and videos, but all you need to do to enter is tell us about something you made. Each dish you share will be an entry in the challenge. You don’t need to write out a formal recipe, just share the story of the dish and, if you can, include a photo. We want to hear ALL about your food-waste-fighting journey, so if you try to improvise a meal and it turns out just OK, but you learn something along the way, go ahead and share that with us too.

Entries can earn additional points by posting and tagging #FWPWChallenge @foodwastepreventionweek, @Ends&Stems and @EatOrToss on social media.

After April 16, our judges will evaluate each entry based on a number of food-waste-fighting factors (see below). We’ll announce the winners during an Instagram Live event. Each winner will be awarded $100.

Enter

Judging Criteria

Entries will be scored based on:

Versatility (ability to use up random ingredients, etc.)
Using parts of the food that are often wasted (peels, stems)
Creativity
Appeal
Power to inspire others to reduce their waste
Wild card - if your recipe does something special that excites us, we’ll award bonus points

In addition to the judge’s selections, we’ll select a raffle winner from all entries.

Who are the judges?

Chef Alison Mountford is a culinary educator, content creator, and marketing strategist

dedicated to reducing consumer food waste. In 2017, she founded Ends+Stems, a recipe

platform helping busy households meal plan with less waste. Recently, Alison partnered with Drexel University to design a virtual food waste reduction course sponsored by an EPA grant. She also hosts What’s in Your Fridge? With Chef Alison, a recurring segment on WPRI Channel 12’s The Rhode Show, showcasing sustainable cooking. Alison has collaborated with organizations such as Target, Airtable, Deloitte, Stanford, UCSF, the Smithsonian, and the EPA. With a culinary career spanning nearly two decades, including 16 years running a catering company in San Francisco, she now serves as Director of Marketing and Communications for Hope & Main, Rhode Island’s premier culinary incubator.

Rachael Jackson is a food journalist and the founding editor of award-winning EatOrToss.com, which uses images and fun, science-based articles to help home cooks assess “questionable-looking” food. Rachael also promotes low-waste cooking and speaks on consumer food waste reduction to audiences ranging from Girl Scouts to government agencies. She has written about food waste for publications including The Washington Post and NationalGeographic.com. She’s excited to read about your food-waste-fighting adventures!

Barbara Martinez-Guerrero is the executive director of an environmental non-profit, Dream in Green, that integrates environmental sustainability lessons into South Florida schools. The organization runs the Green Schools Challenge Competition for K-12 grade students and focuses on themes such as energy efficiency, water conservation, waste management, and food security. Barbara is also a member of the Consortium for a Healthy Miami-Dade as well as the Miami Climate Alliance and is deeply committed to educating individuals on the links between health, preserving our natural resources, and climate change

Rules and Guidelines

You may enter as many times as you'd like.
Your creation may be based on an already published recipe or may be a product of your imagination, but you should explain how you tweaked a recipe to work with what you had or how your dish was inspired by using up food before it spoiled.
You do not need to write out a formal recipe with specific ingredients or instructions–but if you want to, we won’t stop you!

What happens to the recipes?

Recipes and dishes, even those that don’t win the top prizes, may be featured on the websites and social media accounts of Food Waste Prevention Week, Ends & Stems and EatOrToss. We’re most likely to feature recipes with photos so, include those if you can!

Which recipes won last year?

A collection of amazing and ingenious dishes, from Savory Pantry Raid Pancakes to Papri Power Platter! Check them out here.