Not sure what to do with your garden harvest? Learn easy ways to turn both small and abundant harvests into everyday meals.
What to Do With What You Grow
So you decided to start gardening and to your surprise, it’s working. Plants are growing, and now it’s time to harvest.
You start picking everything that’s ready—a couple ripe tomatoes, a zucchini, a handful of beans, some basil trimmings—and bring the harvest all inside.
It looks so vibrant, fresh, colorful, and beautiful. I grew this, you proudly announce to yourself.
But now what?
How do you make dinner with that?
As a fellow gardener (and not quite a homesteader), I’ve been there.
I’ve brought in plenty of random harvests that I haven’t known what to do with. I’ve picked little handfuls of veggies or herbs and wondered how to turn them into a meal. I’ve also brought in overwhelming amounts of harvests and felt paralyzed about how to preserve it all.
And that’s what I want to write about today because I believe every homegrown harvest (big or small) has value and can make us better cooks, gardeners, homemakers, and homesteaders.
Let’s bridge the gap between the garden and the dinner table. We’re no longer just gardeners or just cooks.
We’re both.
This post will give you practical ideas on how to turn any size harvest into everyday meals using simple systems, mindsets, and habits.
Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. By purchasing through my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Rely On “No-Recipe” Recipes
One major thing that helps me use any size harvest from my garden is being able to cook without a recipe.
What that means is knowing basic, easy cooking methods and being able to improvise on the fly without rigidly measuring or sticking to a mandatory ingredients list.
Homegrown food has a major advantage over store-bought due to how fresh and flavorful it is. It tastes amazing on its own with just a little salt or seasoning.
When you’re starting with ingredients that are that delicious alone, it doesn’t take much to turn them into a delicious meal.
You may already have some favorite recipes.
Can any of them be tweaked if you have something from the garden to substitute?
Take a second to think through your repertoire and then add one of the methods/meals I’ll share below.
6 Simple Ways to Make a Meal Out of a Garden Harvest
Some of the absolute easiest ways to turn fresh-picked veggies into a meal or side without relying on a recipe are:
- Roasting. Toss root veggies or brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, etc.) with a small amount of oil. Spread them out on a sheet pan and roast in the oven at 400°F for 20 minutes or until golden brown with crispy edges. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste for a delicious side dish.
- Steaming. Steamed veggies are easy to make and go with just about anything. You can season them with something like everything-but-the-bagel seasoning, furikake, Tajin, or melted herb butter to jazz them up and match the vibe of your protein or main course.
- Stir-fries. Chop any veggie you have and stir-fry with a little oil in large wok or frying pan. Add cooked meat cut into bite-sized pieces. Drizzle everything with a simple pre-made or homemade sauce like teriyaki or Thai peanut sauce (or just sprinkle salt and pepper) and serve with steamed rice.
- Pasta-sauté it. Similar to stir-fries, sauté veggies and meat (if you want) in a pan. Toss it with cooked pasta and olive oil or butter. Or add a sauce like alfredo or marinara. Top with chopped herbs for the finishing touch.
- Salads. Chop greens and herbs into bite-sized pieces. Shave root vegetables with a vegetable peeler or mandolin. Add other chopped veggies if you have any. Add your favorite protein to make a heartier salad. Drizzle with dressing and enjoy. My recipe for cucumber salad with herby avocado dressing is the bomb.
- Sandwiches. I’m partial to open-faced sandwiches (crostini), but you can make it the traditional way if you like. Simply slice veggies thin and put them on top of fresh or toasted bread spread with mayo, mustard, hummus, or cream cheese. Veggies can be raw or roasted. Top with crumbled cheese or thinly sliced meat.
These are just a starting point to give you ideas on how to turn any veggie into a meal.
Just remember that simple = best. The simpler it is to cook something and the fewer ingredients a dish has, the easier it’ll be for you to get dinner on the table.
Prep Daily Harvests Right Away
One habit I’ve picked up over the years of being the primary cook for my family is prepping ingredients when I bring it home from the store.
Veggies and herbs are washed and air-dried. Grains and beans get decanted into containers with measuring cups. Meat (sometimes) gets portioned out and salted or marinated before going into the fridge (or freezer).
You can do the same with your garden—minus the meat, that is.
Make it a habit to venture out with a harvesting basket in the morning before work and pick what looks good to you.
Then prep your harvest.
Wash herbs and greens, spin them dry, and store in the salad spinner. Soak cucumbers and root veggies in water to keep them crisp. Trim and snap green beans.
You get the picture.
You may not have a fully formed idea of what you’ll do with them yet, but at least they are prepped and ready to be eaten raw or cooked into a meal.
Learn to Use Tiny Harvests
Small harvests can be the most exciting and most frustrating part of gardening.
Often, the very first harvest is a tiny harvest. Your plant has just started producing and after weeks of waiting, you are thrilled to see that your efforts are beginning to produce fruit.
On the other hand, the chef side of you sighs in exasperation because how can you be expected to turn a handful of green beans into a full-fledged meal? You’re a chef, not a magician!
Well first of all, just relax. Let gardener-you revel in the thrill of the harvest.
6 Ways to Use a Small Harvest
Then try one of these ideas for using up tiny harvests.
- Just eat it. Eat it raw. Eat it right there in the garden. Revolutionary, I know. The first time I grew okra, I had exactly one pod to harvest. I knew if I left it and waited for the others to mature, it would get too woody. So I just ate it. It was kind of weird but also kind of delicious. So you never know what might happen. Just eat the vegetable.
- Freeze it. If it’s something that you plan to cook with later when you have more of it, just put it in the freezer. Or if you see your plant is about to explode with a whole bowlful of harvest, keep your tiny harvest in the fridge until the rest is ready to pick.
- Garnish your meal. For example, basil benefits from being regularly pruned, but the first pruning is often just a measly two to four leaves. That’s ok! Use it as a garnish for tonight’s dinner. Garnishes count.
- Make an omelet. Or a frittata. Any small amount of herb, leafy green, or veggie can be tossed with eggs and made into a frittata.
- Quick pickle it with other veggies. Pickles make a great, tangy addition to any meal. Here’s a list of garden veggies that are perfect for quick pickling.
- Dry it. Air-dry small amounts of herbs to make your own seasonings. Dehydrate leafy greens and root vegetables to add to soups.
Above all, never underestimate the power of a tiny harvest.
I’ve written a post encouraging gardeners to celebrate tiny harvests because I think that helps us keep going. Read it if you need that encouragement today or save it for when you do.
What to Do with Modest Harvests
This is the sweet spot—the Goldilocks harvest—when your garden produces just enough for a full meal or single recipe. A basket of green beans, a bowlful of basil for pesto, a couple pounds of potatoes.
You probably don’t need any ideas for what to do with this size of harvest, but I’ll give you some anyway.
- Greens: salads, smoothies, stir-fries
- Herbs: pesto, chimichurri, dehydrate for seasonings, freeze extras in oil in ice cube trays
- Roots: roast, add to sheet pan meals, air-fry and make veggie chips
- Tomatoes: salsa, pasta or pizza sauce (try my roasted cherry tomato recipe)
- Cucumbers: salads or make my recipe for cucumber apple juice
(Am I the only one getting hungry over here?)
What to Do with Big Harvests (a.k.a. Help, My Garden Exploded)
Firstly, is it zucchini that’s brought you to this section? Please do not ding-dong-ditch your neighbors with your extra zucchini. They won’t appreciate that. Put them in a box and ship them over to me! Just kidding.
But seriously, if you do end up with a ton of zucchini, try my recipe for smoked zucchini dip. If you love hummus or baba ganoush, or are just plain tired of making zucchini bread, then this is the recipe for you!
If you’ve ever planted an overproducer like zucchini, then you understand that big harvests from your garden can be just as paralyzing and overwhelming as tiny harvests.
Don’t panic. Just roll up your sleeves and do one of these four things.
- Batch cook. You’ve been meaning to become a freezer meal prepper, right? Double or triple your recipe to use up a large harvest, then freeze the extras. Voila, dinner for tonight and next month are done.
- Freeze it. The freezer is my catch-all for harvests (big and small) that I don’t want to deal with yet. I currently have 5 gallon bags of whole tomatoes waiting for me in the freezer from this past summer. I’m sure I’ll process them before the next summer…
- Dehydrate it. I wrote a guide for drying herbs here and one for drying peppers here. It’s really a great preservation method!
- Can it. Preserves, sauces, pickles, and so much more can be water-bath canned. Pretty much anything you want can be pressure-canned as long as you follow a tested recipe. One book I rely on for canning is: The Ball Book of Canning and Preserving.
A few “preserving a big harvest” posts I wrote include:
Pantry Staples to Keep on Hand for Easy Garden Veggie Meals
To make using your harvest even easier, keep these pantry (and fridge) staples stocked.
- neutral oil
- salt
- your favorite spices and seasonings
- a good vinegar (apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar, balsamic)
- eggs
- pasta
- rice
- flour
- cheese, milk, yogurt
- bread
- tortillas
With these ingredients you can make fritters, frittatas, pastas, stir-fries, grain bowls, hearty salads with homemade dressing, soups, tacos, or sandwiches.
How to Avoid Waste
With so much food coming out of your garden, it’s easy to forget about a few carrots shoved in the back of the produce drawer.
So what can we do to avoid this?
One tactic is to make soup. Pick a meal to do a fridge clean-out and repurpose stragglers into a healthy veggie soup.
Another soup-related tactic is to put scraps into a freezer bag for broth. This is what I do with chicken bones and aromatics to make chicken broth once a month.
Vegetable and fruit scraps that are inedible or undesirable can be composted or fed to your animals (if you have them).
I will say that a lot of our “scraps” like peels, carrot tops, and broccoli stems are actually delicious and edible. We just didn’t grow up eating those parts so we may not be as familiar with using them.
If you’re curious about what other parts of veggie plants you can eat, I highly recommend this book: The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook.
You can also see how I put leftover onion tops to good use in this post.
Lastly, if you’ve got a lot of good harvest that you don’t have time to deal with, just give it away. Friends, family, neighbors, and certain food pantries or shelters may take your homegrown produce.
Use and Enjoy Every Harvest
I hope that all these tips and tricks help you use and enjoy every harvest that comes out of your garden.
It may not always be pretty, or perfect, or mind-blowing, but it’s your own homegrown harvest.
Your garden is feeding you and that’s something to celebrate.
You are a gardener and a garden cook. Start using your hard-earned harvest today.
For more ways to use your garden harvests, browse this category on Not Quite a Homestead: The Gardener’s Kitchen. You may also want to take a peek at my Garden Projects & DIYs category for non-food ways to use your garden harvests.
Enjoy!