Kitchen Staples To Keep On Hand

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

Many busy parents these days plan out a week’s worth (or even a month’s worth) of meals at once. This is a great strategy to save money as well as time. However, it works best for families with predictable work schedules and one person handling the cooking. If this doesn’t sound like your family, then keeping your kitchen well-stocked with basic kitchen staples is a must for quick meals on busy weeknights.

We fall into the latter camp. Both my husband and I love to cook. But his workflow as a classroom educator is not always predictable. Some days he ends up staying later at work than he would like. Other days he has late-afternoon meetings. This means that who cooks on a given night is a that-morning decision more often than I would like.

This makes planning out a week’s worth of meals impossible.

Add in the fact that I work from home, and the roads near us are crazy-packed with traffic from noon on, and even getting to the grocery store can be a challenge that eats up more of my day than it’s worth.

This is why I like to keep our kitchen well-stocked with basic kitchen staples. Sometimes I need a fresh ingredient or two that I’ll have Dear Husband grab on his way home from work. Otherwise, though, I usually have what I need on hand to make a wide range of healthy dishes that my family loves.

As I learned when I was a student, stocking kitchen staples (and replenishing when things are on sale) also means saving money:

  • When money is tight, you can go up to a month or more with few to no grocery purchases.
  • And the rest of the time, keeping staples on hand will save you a ton, because you won’t be relying so much on takeout and “convenience” foods. Both of these can really add up in terms of dollars AND negative health consequences, compared to quick and simple meals you cook at home for yourself.

Ready to transform your approach to cooking? Here are some of our must-have kitchen staples:

 What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

This is a collaboration post. However, please know I stand behind everything written here, and only include links to products/services/resources I’m willing to recommend personally.

 

Kitchen Staples To Keep On Hand:

1. Chopped Garlic and Ginger

Garlic is a wonder ingredient. It’s full of both flavor and health benefits. I may have been guilty of throwing a bit more than the recipe calls for into my cooking, once or twice (er, pretty much all the time). Garlic can do everything from help keep your cholesterol in check, to help you fight a cold. Honestly, I throw some into most of the savory dishes I make, whether the recipe calls for it or not.

For those of you who don’t like the time and odor of chopping fresh garlic: Garlic comes pre-chopped in jars! I use garlic so often in my cooking that I always buy a large jar. No, it’s not quite the same as fresh-chopped garlic – but it IS a whole lot faster, and saves your hands from smelling like garlic for the next several days! And jarred garlic lasts a lot longer than fresh cloves anyway.

I also keep ginger on hand for quick Asian dishes. In addition to powdered ginger, I always have a small container of minced ginger in the refrigerator. Again, for me it’s a good compromise that allows me to always have fresh ginger on hand, without the time needed to peel and mince fresh ginger root (or the risk of its going bad before I can use it).

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

2. Hot Sauce

Hot sauce is extremely popular in many kitchens these days. You can use it in your cooking, or just simply drizzle it on your meals at the table. No matter how you use it, hot sauce will add a bit of zing to any dish.

My husband has an entire shelf of various hot sauces in the refrigerator. While I’m not necessarily advocating you stock as wide a variety as he does, this IS convenient for us because he likes his food spicier than the rest of us do. This means that he can always add a little extra kick to his food, even if I’ve toned down the heat for the sake of myself and the girls.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

You can also do lots of other fun things with hot sauce. For example, mix a little sriracha into plain mayonnaise, and you’ve got a “secret sauce” that will give ordinary sandwiches a whole new flavor profile.

Now that you can buy speciality sauces, such as ghost pepper hot sauce, you’ll be able to find just the right level of heat for any dish. And in case one person’s “just right” is much too strong for the rest of the family, keep some milk, lime juice, light sour cream, plain low-fat Greek yogurt, or plain bread on hand. All of these can help take the “bite” out of spicy dishes for grownups and kids alike.

3. Olive Oil

Did you know that the Mediterranean diet is believed to be one of the healthiest in the whole world? One key reason the American Heart Association, among others, recommends following this healthy eating plan is because of its emphasis on olive oil. It’s one of the healthiest oils there is, and has tons of flavor.

Extra-virgin olive oil is the best you can buy, and is great for homemade salad dressings and drizzling over food. If you can afford to splurge, look for a cold-press variety, as this type is especially flavorful. In addition to extra-virgin, we keep lots of regular olive oil on hand, and use it as our main cooking oil.

As with any oil, you should store olive oils away from light and heat, and use them promptly so they don’t go rancid. This is why we buy fancier olive oils in smaller quantities, and only buy regular in bulk because we know we’ll use it faster.

4. Salt, Pepper, and your Favorite Spices

Every meal needs seasoning. Adding a little salt and pepper can really bring out a world of enhanced flavors. And different types of these staples can bring out different tastes. We most commonly use fine sea salt, coarse kosher salt, fresh-ground black pepper, and (for ease of measuring) pre-ground black pepper in our cooking. But there are also

  • fancier “finishing” salts, such as Himalayan pink salt;
  • garlic salt, with or without added ingredients like dried parsley flakes (my personal favorite for at-table use);
  • white pepper;
  • lemon pepper seasonings (which are actually blends of different spices – some with salt, some without);
  • and of course various red peppers, from red pepper flakes to cayenne to ground chili pepper.

And of course there are so many other spices and spice blends that you can use to enhance your cooking. Except during winter, we harvest fresh herbs for cooking from our side garden and the girls’ front-yard tasting garden.

RELATED POST: Why Your Kids Will Love A Tasting Garden

Fo things we can’t grow, we have an entire drawer of spices, and empty/refill most jars regularly. For me, that’s especially true of the cumin, ginger, garlic powder, cinnamon, and Italian seasoning. Still, there’s nothing like fresh basil or fresh chives in a dish.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

5. Eggs

Besides being a super protein source that’s also inexpensive, eggs are perfect for a quick meal or snack any time:

  • With a few minutes, you can pan-fry them, scramble them, or poach them and serve over toast.
  • With a few other ingredients on hand, you can make avocado egg cups for a well-balanced meal-in-a-bowl.
  • Or you can soft-boil them or cook them sunny-side-up (don’t overcook) and add them to a simple salad for a protein boost.
What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.
Egg-topped salad = a perfect quick lunch!
  • If you take a few minutes to hard-boil them, they make great additions to all sorts of dishes, as well as an easy and portable snack.
  • And with a little more time still, you can prepare a quiche or strata.

RELATED POST: Mexican-Style Avocado Egg Breakfast Cups

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And one of the best thing about eggs is they are so easy to cook, so many different ways. Even the girls know how to prepare several types of eggs (with grownup supervision, of course!) on the stovetop now.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.
Kimmie cooking an omelet a few weekends ago, for breakfast burritos.

Frozen Vegetables and “Stable” Fresh Vegetables

If you’re trying to eat healthily when money is tight, it’s hard to beat frozen vegetables for nutrition and flavor. They’re a better choice than canned vegetables, which generally contain lots of hidden sodium. And it’s easier to keep a bag in the freezer for impromptu meals than it is to always have tons of fresh produce on hand.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.
Frozen stir fry veggies + rice from our grains stash (see below) + a pork tenderloin on clearance = quick and easy weeknight meal.

(The exception to my general avoidance of canned vegetables is canned tomatoes. A can of no- or low-salt-added diced tomatoes plus a can of tomato purée or paste, mixed together in a saucepan over low heat, will make a quick and easy pasta sauce with less sugar and salt than a commercial jarred sauce.)

On the other hand, if you have a relatively cool, dark place in which to store them, the fresh vegetables we always keep plenty of include onions and carrots.  These are packed with nutrients, and last longer than most other fresh vegetables you’d buy from the store. (For what it’s worth, you can always chop raw onions and/or celery ahead of time, portion into one-cup containers, and pop them into the freezer for later use in casseroles, soups, and stews.)

If baby carrots are on sale, I will always get these because it saves peeling time, and it makes a quick snack for the girls or an easy pan-roasted addition to dinner. And I use onions like I use garlic in my cooking: often and liberally, as a healthy flavor boost for cooked dishes.

Frozen and Canned Protein

I try to buy meat (and protein substitutes like veggie burgers) on sale in bulk, or else from the clearance pile at the store. If there’s a good price on something I use in cooking, like chicken breasts/thighs or pork loins or ground meat, I’ll bring it home and either cook it that night, or repackage into smaller (1/4-1/2 lb) portions and freeze. That way, whenever it’s my turn to cook, I can grab some protein out of the freezer the night before or that morning, let it thaw in the refrigerator, and then toss it into the slow-cooker or into whatever recipe I’m making for dinner.

And there are so many inexpensive sources of canned protein, from tuna packed in water (which I sometimes have on a bed of lettuce for a quick lunch) to canned beans. If I need to stretch the protein in a dish, I will often add a can or two of beans. With a can of kidney or black beans and some instant rice, you can make a quick meal of beans and rice. (This was one of my frugal-student quick-lunch staples.) Or you can use beans as the protein in taco salads or a quick bowl of hearty, comforting soup.

RELATED POST: Take-Along Taco Salad

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Assorted Pastas

My husband grew up in a family where the starch/grain was as important to the meal as the meat. I grew up on a more veggie-based diet, but in deference to his taste buds, I try to include something along these lines at most meals.

Pasta is a quick and easy base to so many dishes, and a fast side dish for many others. Some frozen meatballs (preferably homemade), some spaghetti, a jar of pasta sauce (or a quick DIY sauce as I mentioned above), and a salad or some cooked carrots, and you’ve got a fast kid-pleasing meal.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.
Spaghetti + meatballs + quick sauce + cheese + carrots = easy weeknight dinner.

To make things more interesting, you can mix up the sauce and cooked pasta with some cooked frozen veggies and either cubes of leftover meat, or a can of beans. Boom! – instant one-pot casserole.

But you don’t need to limit yourself to plain pasta. There are various blends with more whole grains now, as well as gluten-free pastas. And then there are noodles: rice/glass noodles, soba (buckwheat) noodles, even brown-rice-based ramen now (which is healthier than the cubes of noodle plus high-sodium seasoning that sustained me and many of my friends through school).

There’s also couscous, a pasta that is more grain-like in consistency than your average pasta. As such, it’s an easy swap for menus that call for rice as a side or base. It cooks a lot faster than regular rice, but is tastier than instant rices. (Though I confess, I keep both white and brown Minute-Rice on hand to use in a pinch.)

Assorted Whole Grains

There are tons of whole grains that most Americans don’t eat often, which are so much healthier for you than white rice or basic pasta. Brown rice, the healthier alternative to white rice, is perhaps most common to Americans. Short-grain brown rice has a chewy, nutty texture/taste that we especially like. And toasting rice in a hot pan before cooking can give it different flavor notes than just cooking it straight up. So can cooking it in broth instead of plain water.

Then there are the more “exotic” (to Americans’ palates) whole grains. If you’ve never tasted amaranth, barley, buckwheat, millet, or “wild rice,” it’s worth trying them. They each have unique health benefits and flavor profiles, so it’s worth getting small quantities and experimenting (as a side dish, in soups, in casseroles) to see which your family likes best.

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.
Our whole grains collection in our kitchen hutch.

My favorite whole grain of all is quinoa. If you’ve never tried it: Quinoa is native to South America, and is the only whole grain that contains all the enzymes of a “complete” protein. AND it cooks in only 15-20 minutes! As such, it’s my go-to source of vegan protein if I want something that’s not bean- or soy-based. Quinoa can be pricey in the grocery store, so I always look for it on sale. Or I buy it in bulk at Costco (where it costs a fraction of the price per pound that it sells for in the grocery store).

What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.Now that you’ve stocked up on kitchen staples, are you at a loss for how to use them in quick meals? Then you need this cookbook, which I received as a gift from my friend Raiah years ago. It’s got a lot of flavorful dishes and cooking technique ideas, many quick and easy to prepare.

And the best part is, it’s organized by ingredient – so you can hunt for inspiration based on those noodles you’ve been craving, or whatever type of meat you found on clearance that morning.


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What kitchen staples do you keep on hand? A kitchen stocked with key basics can help you prep quick, healthy meals on busy weeknights, while saving money.

 

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32 thoughts on “Kitchen Staples To Keep On Hand”

  1. Having lots of pantry essentials on hand makes whipping up a quick dinner pretty easy. Great suggestions!
    My favorite grains are also quinoa & millet! A delicious way I prepare these grains is to make a savory grain-based salad with quinoa or millet, parsley,sun-dried tomatoes, Kalamata olives, garbanzo beans, spices and a lemony-olive oil dressing.
    Best part of cooking from the pantry (besides the amazing flavor) is the amount of money you can save!

  2. I keep a pretty well stocked kitchen like you do. It makes deciding what to prepare a breeze. I love collecting spices too so, I can relate to this post.

  3. We use garlic in nearly every dish we make. However, I love chopping it ourselves. Olive oil is als a must in our home,

  4. I also have a hard time planning meals out even a week ahead due to our schedules. Keeping the kitchen stocked with staples like the ones you have featured here definitely helps me prepare meals relatively quickly.

  5. This is a great list of must-haves to keep in the kitchen. We always have a variety of pasta available and frozen veggies. I’m going to look for this minced ginger, I think I need it.

  6. Yournoa try looks like mine. I am glad I’m not the only one who stocked up. I always have hot sauce, garlic and other kitchen stuff that we need all the time. Great post and thank you for sharing.

  7. My kitchen would be a kitchen without my olive, and coming from the Carribean, hot sauce is a must for our house. All of them are my favorite.

  8. Oooo so many must-haves on this list!!!! I never let my olive oil get too low!!! That’s one thing I use all the time!!!

  9. That’s good list, we only do plans worth more than a week for essential things because we like to do different meals which save money for that is needed to get other ingredients :).

  10. Not gonna lie. The salad topped with a sunny-side-up egg kinda blew my mind. I mean, I do hard boiled on salad all the time, but I never considered fried!

    1. #sogood – this photo/idea actually came from a rare date night out for Dear Husband and me, and it was soooo tasty that I’ve replicated it several times since!!!

  11. Reesa Lewandowski

    I like to go through my cabinets every now and then make a list of things I need. You can really get things made when you have essentials!

  12. Hey Flossie, I love these ingredients and how you have shown how you can make easy meals! I think my most staple ingredients as a student are eggs on rice and garlic in sauces x

  13. I think the only one I don’t make sure to keep on hand is hot sauce, but that’s because I don’t like anything spicy. I am also guilty of adding more garlic than most recipes call for. I got a wonderful garlic press quite a few years ago so having freshly minced garlic is a breeze now! It also does ginger.

  14. I’m a hardcore meal planner. Not only do I make all of my meals on Sunday, but I strictly schedule what I plan on making for the kids and my husband. That being said, I also have moments when I just feel like doing something different. It’s so important to have all of these things on hand at all time!

  15. These are such great things to keep in your kitchen. I have a massive amount of seasonings. From steak seasons to salts, I think I have all of the seasonings. My favorites are garlic and lemon pepper. This is a very handy list, I am going to save this and stock my kitchen up!

  16. Having stuff on-hand definitely makes work days easier. Now that my husband is retired (and I work full-time), he does the cooking 3 days per week. He has not yet embraced the art of having items on-hand and using the freezer wisely. Instead, he goes to the store each day to buy the ingredients for dinner that night. Whatever floats his boat, but I need to have some basics in the cupboard and freezer. Really good advice!

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