If I Learned One Thing from Watching Rachael Ray, It's Always Have a Scraps Bowl—and Hers Is the Best

I've learned one thing while watching Rachael Ray on the Food Network: If there's one way to stay organized while cooking, it's with a compost bowl.

If you haven't heard Ray expound on the benefits of the compost bowl, let me explain. A compost bowl can, in theory, be any bowl, and its use is just as ubiquitous. It's used to gather all of the scraps and debris you acquire when cooking, like onion scraps, egg shells, chicken bones, garlic skin and more. By disposing of these items into your scrap bowl, you'll have plenty of room on your cutting board to keep chopping away and a cleaner workspace overall.

And I'll be honest, I've used every kind of bowl for the job, from mixing bowls to soup bowls. But the best bowl I've found in my 10-plus years of cooking, is the bowl designed by Ray herself.

To buy: $20, amazon.com

The Rachael Ray Garbage Bowl is a 4-liter bowl made from melamine, a type of reusable plastic. This means it's not microwave-safe, but that's OK. After all, you don't want to microwave food scraps.

There are two features that make it perfect for its job: It's thin rim and large capacity. The almost non-existent rim makes it perfect for sliding under a countertop to easily scoop carrot peels and bell pepper seeds into the bowl. And the large capacity means it can hold as many scraps as you acquire—you could meal prep our Chipotle-Lime Cauliflower Taco Bowls and our Mason Jar Power Salad with Chickpeas & Tuna for the week ahead and still have room left to toss in even more.

Even when you're hurrying around the kitchen at lightspeed, the nonslip base will ensure your scrap bowl will stay upright. And when you're done cooking, you can easily dump all of the collected scraps in the compost bin.

But don't let it only serve you as a scraps bowl. It's perfect for serving salad, popcorn and plenty more because you can just pop it in the dishwasher for thorough, easy cleaning.

Personally, one of my favorite aspects of the bowl is its style. It comes in seven different colors, including red, agave blue and sea salt grey, so you can match the color to the style of your kitchen. And the speckled design is unique; I don't have another bowl that's quite like it.

If you don't have a designated scraps bowl in your kitchen, it's really time you did. Add Ray's trash bowl to your kitchen today for just $20.

At the time of publishing, the price was $20.