What can I use coffee grounds for?

Once your morning cup of coffee has brewed and woken you up, there‘s usually the question of „what can I use coffee grounds for?“ Let me share with you a few genius ideas to reuse old coffee grounds directly in your house and garden. 

If you‘re a coffee lover like me, chances are you have a bucket full of coffee grounds. If you‘re even more like me, those coffee beans will be of pretty high quality and cost you a pretty penny. An investment that‘s obviously worth it, since we indulge in our favourite beverage a few times a day. 

Coffee is popular all around the world. Whether you choose to buy yours in your local cafe or brew it yourself at home, every cup leaves a little tray of used coffee grounds behind. Often, these remains are discarded and end up in the household bin, which happened at my home for quite some time. But eventually I asked myself, isn‘t there a better way? What can I use coffee grounds for? So this is how I started my research.

You‘ll be surprised by just how many practical uses old coffee grounds have. Some practices in the garden you may already be aware of, others in the home might be new to you, especially those adding to your beauty routine. 

Treats to enjoy with your cup of coffee

First thing’s first. Grab yourself a cuppa and make yourself comfortable. The next few minutes are for you to enjoy. If you‘ve got your coffee sorted, but want something tasty to go with it, why not try some of my favourite recipes? My Lemon Drizzle Cake is the perfect companion for afternoons, while my Sourdough Choc Chip Cookies work great as a morning snack. For the breakfast lovers out there, why not try my Sourdough Pancakes or Gluten Free Pancakes, or maybe a crunchy Granola sprinkled over a Smoothie Bowl? For a dose of hidden vegetables, my Zucchini Loaf or Carrot Cake are hot favourites.

But I don‘t make my own coffee – does this mean I have to buy and grind my own beans? Fear not, if you don‘t make your own coffee at home, most coffee shops have an abundance of old coffee grounds they will happily give away. A few shops in my town simply package them back into the bean‘s bags and place them in a box outside the cafe for people to take. Have a look around your neighbourhood and speak with your local barista. I‘m sure you‘ll find yourself a bag of used coffee grounds in absolutely no time. 

So let‘s dive in and see how we can make use of them at home. 

How to use coffee grounds in the garden

Your garden might be the most obvious place to use coffee grounds for. After all, used coffee grounds already look a bit like soil. The thing with gardening is that there is one type of soil in your garden, but you‘ll likely have a variety of plants, fruits and vegetables that don‘t naturally happen to live next to each other. This means that there‘s a pretty good chance your soil may lack a few nutrients those plants need. 

When plants grow they also absorb a lot of the nutrients in the soil, leaving it somehow depleted. Gardeners will therefore recommend you to fertilise your plants, and give them the nourishment they need to thrive. 

Coffee grounds as fertiliser

The easiest use of coffee grounds in your garden is to use them straight up as fertiliser. Used coffee beans contain a range of minerals like nitrogen, supporting plant growth, and can even help absorb any nasties that hide in your garden‘s soil. Worms seem to love the smell of coffee just as much as we do, and are keen to work their magic in the fertilised area. This again is great for your garden. 

So how do we use coffee grounds as fertiliser? Simply spread a handful directly around your plants. I like to spread my coffee grounds right before rainfall, or before watering my plants. It could just be me, but I feel it makes it easier to incorporate them with the soil.

Coffee grounds as compost

If you have a garden, but simply not the need to fertilise right this moment, you might want to consider composting your ground coffee beans. Composting allows you to turn your organic waste, like food scraps, coffee grounds or garden debris, into a rich, dark compost, also known as humus. 

Similar to fertiliser, compost can feed your soil with nutrients and help your plants grow. We mentioned nitrogen earlier, and this is also a key ingredient to compost. It helps balance carbon-rich materials and helps with water retention, improving the health of your plants. 

If you have a compost or want to start composting, think about adding your kitchen scraps like veggie peels, egg shells or apple cores. You might even have a few pieces of stale bread or herbs to add to the mix. When cleaning up your garden, move any leaves, bark and grass clippings to the compost. 

Things you shouldn‘t add to the compost to keep it nice and healthy are any parts from sick plants, as well as meat, fish and dairy products and oils. 

Coffee grounds as pest repellent

When your veggie patch is starting to thrive, you will likely find not only fresh produce, but also nasty pests. Slugs and snails are commonly attracted to fresh produce and will do whatever they can to munch on your produce before you get to it. 

Thankfully, coffee grounds are a natural pest repellent. Sprinkled around your veggies, coffee grounds will deter slugs and snails, as well as ants. Fruit flies, beetles and mosquitos also don’t like the smell of coffee. You can place a few bowls around your outdoor seating areas or simply sprinkle a handful of ground coffee beans around your seats. 

How to use coffee grounds in your home

So now that we have the outdoors covered, let’s move inside the home. Coffee grounds are amazing for cleaning and exfoliating, but also great at using their amazing scents to balance out a few more stinky spots in the house. 

Coffee grounds to neutralise smells

We already mentioned that coffee grounds are filled with nitrogen. While this is handy for your soil, it’s also great for any smelly corners of the house, as it can help eliminate foul smells and eliminate odours. 

How do you do that, you ask? Simply place a small bowl of used coffee grounds in a smelly corner. A prime area in my house is the fridge, where strong scents of cabbage and cheese can sometimes leave my fridge a little stinky. 

They’re also amazing at removing onion or garlic scents from your hands after cutting. Simply leave a small bowl next to your sink to scrub your hands with. 

If you have school aged children, or hit the gym a lot, you may also want to keep a few pantyhose filled with ground coffee beans in your entrance area, to place into your shoes, gym bag or kid’s backpack.

Coffee grounds as a natural cleaner

Ok, here’s the thing, most of you would have had to deal with a coffee spill at some point in their lives. 

While coffee can leave nasty stains on fabric or porous materials, coffee grounds can be an amazing natural scrub on smooth surfaces around your home. If you want to stay away from chemicals wherever possible, a handful of old ground coffee beans might be the way to go for you. 

Due to their rough texture, they’re great at cleaning those stubborn stains across the home. Use them in the sink or to scrub your pots and pans. You could even try them on your grill to get some of that nasty grease off. 

Coffee grounds to exfoliate

I remember years ago, I was gifted a coffee exfoliator. It came in a pretty package, had a catchy tagline and promised to wake up my skin. It had a pretty steep price point, so obviously I was super excited to try it. 

So there I was, ready to exfoliate. My excitement peaked, I tore open the package and found… about 4 shots worth of ground coffee beans. 

I guess one woman’s trash really is another woman’s treasure. The scrub worked amazingly well and my skin felt great, but you can save yourself the trip to the money (and trip to the mall) and use your kitchen leftovers instead. 

You see, there are plenty of easy ways to recycle your used coffee beans. Let me know in the comments which one is your favourite.