In part 1 of this series, I shared that the key to cooking good meals at home is having the right ingredients on hand to make what you want to make. No one wants to get to 5pm on Tuesday only to discover you’re missing a key ingredient to whatever meal you want to make that evening. I also shared in part 1 that we typically cook three types of cuisines: Japanese, Tex-Mex, and Southern. What you usually make is going to heavily influence what you keep in your pantry and fridge.
The items linked below are affiliate links. If you make a purchase using the link I may earn a commission for those items. I share the items that are a little more speciality items and also share where we buy the others. I searched for where to find these items for the best cost. In most cases, they are from Walmart, Target, or Amazon - all of which I typically shop at for groceries.
Pantry items we always have on hand
Beans (canned and dried black beans, green beans, canned and dried pinto beans)
Broths (beef and chicken) We usually stock up on these from Costco.
Cornmeal
Corn starch
Dark chocolate chips
Flour (all-purpose flour, bread flour, cake flour)
Hot sauce. We usually keep Louisiana and taco sauce stocked.
Jams. Big Bonne Maman fans.
Marinara sauce. Literally whatever is in stock at Costco. I’ll share how we spruce it up in another post!
Mustards (dijon, spicy brown, whole grain mustard, yellow mustard)
Oils (avocado oil, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, sesame oil) We get all of these from Costco except for sesame oil.
Pasta (angel hair, penne, rotini, spaghetti)
Peanut butter. Crunchy and creamy
Rice
Sake
Soy sauce
Sweeteners (brown sugar, granulated sugar, honey, maple syrup)
Tomatoes (canned diced tomatoes, Rotel, tomato paste, tomato sauce, whole tomatoes) All from Costco
Vanilla extract. Also from Costco
Vinegar (apple cider vinegar, balsamic, vinegar, red wine vinegar, rice vinegar, white vinegar)
Worcestershire sauce
Yeast
Dried spices
We have a ton of dried spices in our pantry that we have collected over the years. The majority of our dried spices came in those giant bottles from Costco to help cut down on cost. Storing them isn’t the best but we use them all the time so it makes sense to us. There are no aesthetic little jars with matching labels happening here.
Our unspoken rule of spices is that if we don’t like it, we don’t use it. For example, we do not like rosemary. No recipe is going to convince us that we need to use rosemary. I’ve never eaten something and wished it had rosemary in it. So we don’t stock rosemary. But here’s the core of what we do keep stocked:
Basil
Bay leaves
Black pepper
Cayenne pepper
Chili powder
Cinnamon
Cumin
Garlic powder
Red pepper flakes
Onion powder
Oregano
Paprika
Salt (flaky sea salt, Kosher salt, sea salt)
Thyme
Fresh ingredients we always have on hand
Apples
Broccoli
Carrots
Celery
Cheeses (parmesan, sharp cheddar). We typically buy blocks of cheese to cut or shred instead of pre-cut cheeses.
Eggs
Garlic
Ginger
Lemons and limes
Potatoes (sweet potatoes, Russett potatoes, Yukon gold potatoes)
Strawberries
Sour cream
Onions (green onion, red onion, yellow onion)
Yogurt (plain full-fat yogurt)
Zucchini
In Part 2B of this series, I’ll share the items we use weekly, if not daily, to cook our meals. I prefer to keep a nice, small amount of cookware, utensils, and dishes.
Thank you for this!!! I’m on track, but see some things I should restock. Also… LIVE not matching spice jars with labels!! 🙌🏻
Our pantry is similar! Pearl couscous is another pasta we keep on hand. Everyone is a fan! It's nice to see another family with fish sauce. While it's not my favorite, my husband loves it on all our Asian-inspired dishes.