Ideas: Sustainable and Biodegradable Banana Leaves Make Great Table Settings

I went into Whole Foods the other day and they were selling banana Leaves! So why is that so cool? Last week’’s post about the Sadyha style meal in India had me thinking about ways to use banana leaves at home. They’re cheap and there are lots of cool things you can do with them that go way beyond Luau-themed summer backyard parties.

Bunches of banana leaves at Whole Foods for $3.99. Banana leaves are commonly used to wrap steamed or grilled foods in many ethnic dishes but can be used in lots of ways to make common meals at home memorable. If you don’t find them at Whole Foods they’re commonly available at Asian and Latin American grocery stores.

Here are just 3 of the hundreds of ways you can use banana leaves to make common, everyday meals at home more interesting.

• Use banana leaves as placematts – The meal doesn’t have to be some ethnic style feast. Using banana leaves can be a fun way to elevate a common meal at home to something people will remember.
• Use banana leaves for group activity food parties – Use one large banana leaf as a table covering for parties like pizza night, Vietnamese wraps, or the taco night shown here.
  

  Running a large banana leaf down through the center of the table is a great way to make taco night at home more fun. The ridge down the center of the leaf holds the shells really well and ingredients can be put directly on the leaf without seeping through to the table. Simply roll up the leaf for easy clean up.

• Use slices of banana leaves to dress up plain white dinnerware. Simple touches like this can turn a common everyday meal into something people will remember and costs only pennies.

If Whole Foods doesn’t happen to have them when you go there most Asian grocery stores like 99 Ranch Mart or Latin American grocery stores will have them as they’re commonly used for wrapping many ethnic foods.