Max La Manna’s Food Tips, Hacks & Recommendations

I’m all about helping people to cook food they already have. Using entire ingredients can save time, save money and save the food itself. People can open You Can Cook This if they have a certain ingredient in their fridge, pantry or cupboard that needs eating. Instead of throwing it away, there are really simple chapter breakdowns on each ingredient and recipes to go with it. 

I wasn’t surprised by the most wasted ingredients – because here in the UK we waste everything. Bananas, herbs, onions, bread, potatoes, bagged salad… Of everything we bring into our homes, a third ends up going to waste – that's roughly £800 of edible food per household every year.

Working in a restaurant, food waste was under my nose the whole time. I’d see these massive dumpsters come and pick up all the leftover food, and I started thinking about where it was going and what was happening to it. It was a Michelin-starred restaurant – why was food being thrown away? I was a line chef and we had to prep everything perfectly – everything had to be a perfect shape, so if you're cutting a carrot, you had to cut off the ends, peel it and then make sure everything was cut to a precise size. I started looking in my own bin at home and seeing what food I was throwing away. Before I could point fingers at anyone else, I had to point the finger at myself and say, ‘Okay, what am I doing and how can I make those changes?’ Slowly, one ingredient at a time, I started reducing waste and using the whole ingredient – and that's where I am today.

Creating a waste-free kitchen at home is actually very easy. The simplest way is to cook the food you already have. A lot of people go to the supermarket and they overbuy. Instead, before you even get there, think about the recipes you want to create that week or that weekend. It sounds obvious, but create a shopping list before you head to the store. Don’t rely on remembering everything in your head! Even as someone who goes to the shop multiple times a week, I write lists because I don't want to go off piste and buy things I don't need. But before you make that list, you need to do an inventory of what you have and what you don’t have – then go from there. 

If you’re not in the habit of saving leftovers, don’t cook more than you need. Saving your leftovers is a huge waste eliminator and there's a section in my book that has various recipes based on previous dishes in the book that show you how to use up those leftovers. Put them in your freezer and come back to them a week or even months later and they'll be good to go – and sometimes, it’s even better than when you first made it. There are so many easy ways to make the most of leftovers – it could even be something like adding a bit of freshness to the dish by adding herbs or lemon zest or a squeeze of lemon juice or maybe some toasted seeds or nuts that go on top. You can make quick dressings and condiments which become flavour-packed toppings. Those quick little recipes that go on top of a dish can really enhance a leftover dish.

I’ve been vegan twice. The first time I went plant based was 2012 and it was a different time. I was 20, living in New York City, and it was a lot harder trying to make ends meet. I was cooking from home a lot, but cooking the same thing over and over again, and it felt very limited. Now I've been plant based for six years. It’s been great – I love cooking the food I have, I love cooking with vegetables and I love working out how to mimic different textures in a playful way. I think I needed that first attempt so I could see how far I've come. If you look through the new book, a lot of the recipes won't be labelled as vegan – instead of saying vegan butter or vegan cheese I just use the words ‘milk’, ‘cheese’ or ‘butter’ as I want to encourage people to use what they have in their fridge. At the beginning of the book, it says everything in the book has been tested with plant-based ingredients, and by cooking the recipes you're just going to have more plants in your diet, but I'm happy if somebody at home wants to use dairy products. I'm not over here saying, ‘You’ve got to go vegan.’ That isn't the message – it’s to cook the food you already have.

One of my first food memories is my mum’s tomato sauce. She’s Italian-French-American, so asking my mother for recipes in my 20s when I was living on my own was hard, as they’re all in her head. For her, it’s all about the feel, smell and taste as you cook. Every weekend, my mother would cook a fresh batch of tomato sauce in a 20-litre pan and the first thing I would wake up to when I was a kid was the smell of onions and garlic roasting. That was like my alarm clock. I’d go down to the kitchen to have my breakfast and watch her make tomato sauce from scratch. It would last us for the entire week.

I moved to the UK for the tea and the crumpets – but stayed when I met my wife. I first came over to host some supper clubs. I always used to cook at home and host supper clubs at my home in Brooklyn. One of my friends told me to post about them on social media and my audience started growing from there. About six months into my Instagram life, I started noticing that a large part of my audience was based in London, so I decided to host a couple of supper clubs here. Within three weeks, I’d met my now wife, and the rest is history.

Silo is one of my favourite restaurants in London. It’s a zero-waste place in east London. The founder Douglas McMaster is now a good friend of mine. Mildred's is a great place and is meaningful to me as that's where I took my wife for our first lunch. Yauatcha in Soho is great too. It’s not a vegan restaurant per se, but there’s a reason I like it. When I was working in New York with the Michelin-starred chef, we had chefs from other restaurants that would pop in to see how things were being run. I made friends with one of those chefs, who ended up coming to London and is now is the exec chef of Hakkasan Group, which has Yauatcha. He and I are best friends now and, just by having that relationship, he's added more vegan options to the menu.

I have a couple of signature dishes if I have people coming over. For something speedy that’s going to be comforting and delicious – kind of like soul food – I go for tofu butter chicken. The tofu is pressed to remove some of the water, then it's tossed in corn starch, and baked in the oven so it gets a nice crunchy outer layer but is still soft in the middle. I serve that with a curry sauce made with onions, garlic and ginger, a little bit tomato paste and some coconut milk, cooked until it thickens, then I toss it with the crispy tofu. It’s so crunchy, warming and luxurious. I’ll serve it with some rice and poppadoms or naan. If I'm trying to impress, I would go for my stuffed mushroom ravioli. Making a homemade pasta from scratch is really simple, but always impresses. I make the pasta using chickpea water (aquafaba), which most people throw down the drain. I then stuff it with some sautéed mushrooms. The base is a tofu and asparagus whip – the tops of the asparagus heads are sautéed with garlic and thyme – then I top it all off with lemon zest. I'm a big fan of microplane graters. I love just adding a little bit of zest to any dish for a little bit of an extra pick-up.

I love having a lot of friends over for brunch. I love coffee, so I have a nice coffee machine and will make everyone whichever coffee they want. Over lockdown, I really practised my latte art, so I love impressing people with my skills. I also love feeding people, so it's either going to be something sweet or savoury, or most likely both – maybe pancakes, waffles or French toast, and then I’ll do a riff on a full English with scrambled tofu, toast, sautéed mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, spinach and baked beans. I’ll fill the table with as much food and coffee as possible.

I grew up having pizza on Friday nights, usually made from scratch. I have a Gozney pizza oven, so for a fun Friday evening I like to make some pizza and serve it up for everyone before we sit down to watch a movie and have a drink. My topping choices depend on what mood I'm in – I’m a simple guy, so it could just be some marinara sauce and vegan mozzarella. Other times, I’ll add vegan sausages crumbled on top of roasted peppers and mushrooms. 

On a Sunday, I like to be surrounded by people. Typically, I would like to be cooking, that's where I feel most comfortable. On a Sunday, I’d go for a nut roast, roasted potatoes, roasted veg on the side as well as some steamed kale or spinach with garlic, olive oil and lemon zest. The new book has a good recipe for a nut roast, where you caramelise roasted carrots at the base of the roast and then when it comes out the oven, you flip it over so it's kind of like a tarte tatin. If I said this to an American, they would have no idea what the hell I was talking about, as we don’t do roasts in the US. But these days, I love to head to a farm shop and make a big roast at home.