The Best Eco-Friendly Gifts for Home Cooks (That Still Feel Chic)

Source: Eater
Category: Food
Originally Published: 2025-11-19
Curated: 2025-12-05 16:19

is the commerce writer at Eater, and an award-winning writer with bylines in GQ, VICE, The Daily Beast, and other publications. A curious home cook with a deep love of Polish cabbage rolls, her devotion to food service journalism knows no bounds.

There’s a whole lot of landfill fodder (Labubus) being churned out these days, and holiday shopping can sometimes feel nerve-racking when you don’t want to contribute to, well, the influx of junk. But when I mention eco-friendly holiday gifts, visions of dancing Deadhead bears and hacky-sack-tossing Phish Phans (nothing but big love for both of these camps, by the way) might dance in your head. Sustainable gift ideas don’t have to be cringe and crunchy, though; in the post-Goop digital shopping landscape [puffs chamomile pre-roll], eco-friendly gifts run the gamut of tried-and-true, old school planet-friendly kitchen hacks (beeswax wraps forever) and a new wave of chic (these Pierre Cardin-looking, BPA-free kitchen containers) and high-tech (the Mill food recycler) finds. (Oh, and for all of you grilled-cheese-loving headlights on a northbound train, the Grateful Dead apron line from Hedley & Bennett is made out of sustainable, long-lasting natural cotton canvas.)

It helps to remember that what while an eco-friendly kitchen gift can be a recycled cutting board or nontoxic cleaner, it can also be a reusable item that makes for a more sustainable lifestyle, such as the use of a bedside carafe (in lieu of plastic bottles) or reusable, stretchy lids (instead of Saran Wrap or tin foil).

As a longtime shopping writer with a love of countertop-worthy designs that last, the following is my gifting cheat sheet for more planet-friendly presents for every kind of home cook.

This bedside carafe makes drinking more water easy

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate — many of us are trying to drink more water, and having an appealing vessel really helps. We’re in a renaissance of chic bedside carafes, and this amber vessel from Maison Balzac is my personal favorite for its retro colorway and versatile silhouette. Not a day goes by that I don’t use it, and it becomes a chic way to present my otherwise boring tap water to my friends during a movie night. Given that a six-pack flat of small Mountain Valley water bottles goes for about $8, it’s also way more cost-effective.

Design-forward glass and non-BPA plastic food storage containers

A favorite of food writer Emma Orlow (from the Eater guide to non-Tupperware food storage containers), Cliik’s BPA-free storage jars feel like they’re straight out of a mod 1960s apartment. Plus, the lids magnetically stack — so they won’t be sliding around in your cabinets.

Cool beeswax candles are always a must

Martha Stewart once decreed unscented beeswax candles as the only true dinner party candle, because they burn cleaner and last longer than paraffin candles, and I took that to heart. Not only are the following cool-shaped candles not made out of crude oil (boo) but they can pay homage to your giftee’s love of entertaining, corn, tomatoes — you name it.

This nontoxic, linen-scented surface cleaner

I have a big and oddly specific love for Avant’s nontoxic “fresh linen”-scented surface cleaner; for one, it somehow smells exactly like the swanky Parisian dormitories of Cité Universitaire that I stayed at in the mid-00s, which must come down to the staff’s talent for circulating fresh linens; but I also appreciate that it’s free from potentially harmful substances like parabens and chlorine, making it what I call “a finishing spray” for my post-deep-clean counters and sinks. Why not give one to the clean freak in your life, along with some cute microfiber surface cloths?

Using a little table brush for crumbs? Very chic

Stop reaching for paper towels, and start reaching for this chic table brush set.

Because blue sponges are gross

Deliver your giftee from the Sisyphean battle of constantly replacing that dingy blue sponge and give them this charming trio of 100 percent biodegradable brushes, which are made out of bamboo, beechwood, sisal, and coconut fiber.

This recycled cutting board

As much as I love my hefty wood cutting boards, sometimes you just want to whip out a more lightweight model. This cutting board from Public Goods would be a welcome addition to any avid cook’s arsenal, because it’s lightweight, dishwasher-safe, and free of parabens and BPA materials. In fact, it’s made out of recycled paper and wood fibers (the same materials used in skateboard ramps).

I use these stretch lids to easily store leftovers

These stretchy lids from Stasher give me so much peace, because they can be used on a variety of bowl shapes and sizes, and whether you’re storing leftovers in the fridge or taking a big salad to the park in the spring, the brand says that it “replaces 10 rolls of plastic wrap every year” in (what I assume) they calculate to be the use for an average household.

Sustainably harvested olive oil

Flamingo Estate’s organic, non-GMO olive oil is one of the brand’s marquee products, and it’s made in collaboration with a fourth-generation olive farmer, Philip Asquith, who the site describes as “the guardian of thousands of gnarled, centuries-old trees—each one lovingly tended, season after season.”

This high-tech compost bin

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