Pantry Basics: Ingredients and Organization

Having a stocked pantry can make cooking a lot easier.  After cooking for a few years, I came to know the ingredients I use regularly that are helpful to always have on hand.  These are the ingredients that as soon as I'm running low on, I add to the next grocery list.  By doing this, recipes with 10 ingredients might have only 3 that I actually need to buy on any given week.  My pantry includes these items that I always like to have, as well as special items that I've bought for upcoming meals (or recipes in the past), but that I wouldn't restock once they were used up.

In this post I will share the pantry foods that I like to keep on hand, plus my method for organizing them.  One thing to note is that there are other foods I like to keep on hand in the refrigerator/freezer, but I will tackle those in another post.

If you are new to cooking or just not sure how to decide what to keep on hand, I hope this will be a helpful starting place for you.  The particular items you choose as your staples might be slightly different from mine, but you could use a similar process.  

To the right is a picture of my main pantry area.  It is next to the refrigerator in my kitchen which is very convenient!  You can see that I happen to have six shelves.  I have them organized in a way that makes sense to me.  Your organization might be different based on the number of shelves/areas you have and the types of foods you eat.    Let's look at what I put on each shelf and what I consider to be my staple items for each shelf.

Primary Cooking Shelf:

The primary cooking shelf is where I have the bottles and ingredients used in cooking dinners.  I always keep on hand oils, vinegars, cornstarch, and garlic.  Also on this shelf are some spices (I will discuss these more next), and any specific ingredients I will be using for upcoming dinners.  This week I am using avocados in two recipes, so I have those on this shelf, but I don't always keep avocados stocked.  

The items on this shelf that I always keep on hand are:

• olive oil
• sesame oil
• canola oil
• coconut oil spray
• butter cooking spray
• rice vinegar
• balsamic vinegar
• distilled white vinegar
• red wine vinegar
• apple cider vinegar
• fish sauce
• cornstarch
• garlic
• onions (I keep these on top of the refrigerator, but they fit in this category!)

Spices:

I keep some spices on the primary cooking shelf (like the salt), but the majority of my spices are on a separate spice rack that hangs in the kitchen (yes, it is alphabetized... haha!).  Having a variety of spices on hand can really improve your meals.  If you don't have any spices, definitely start with salt and pepper.  Then, buy them as you need them for recipes that you try.  After a month or two notice which spices you use the most often, and buy them in bulk if you can (it is much cheaper).  While I have about 40 different spices on my spice rack and elsewhere in my kitchen, there are about 15 that I use very regularly.  These are the spices that I buy in bulk and then refill the little jars as needed (actually it is Mark who usually refills the jars because for some reason I hate doing it.... thanks Mark!! :) ).  I make a lot of spicy food and Asian foods, so those types of spices are the ones I use a lot.  

Here are my top spices:

• Basil
• Black Pepper
• Salt
• Cayenne Pepper
• Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Cumin
• Curry Powder
• Oregano
• Red Pepper Flakes
• Sesame Seeds
• Thyme
• Turmeric

Grains and Carbs Shelf:

Another shelf in the main pantry is where I keep the grains and carbs that I use when cooking dinner.  The particular grains you keep on hand will depend on what you like the most.  I like to keep grains in oxo pop containers so they stay fresh (and look nice).  It's really helpful to have at least one quick-cooking grain on hand for when you need a side for dinner, so you might start with whichever grain you like the best!  

Also on this shelf is where I keep potatoes.  This week I happen to have red potatoes, russet potatoes, and sweet potatoes, but I don't always keep these on hand.  I only buy them if I will be using them in the coming week (since while they have a long shelf life, they don't last forever).  Then, I try to make sure I use them all up in the following weeks.

Grains I like to keep on hand:

• long grain brown rice
• quinoa
• bulgar wheat (*If I had to have only one, this would be the one I would have-- it is relatively cheap, healthy, and cooks in 15 minutes*)

Other grains/carbs I often have:

• pearled barley
• pasta

Breakfast Shelf:

This shelf is where I keep all of the non-refrigerated items we have for breakfast.  We both have oatmeal pretty much every day, so that's what I like to have on hand.  I have oatmeal with coconut butter (usually would be on this shelf, but I need to make more) and frozen blueberries.  Mark has oatmeal with chopped walnuts (these are in the freezer) and honey.  There is also boxed cereal (it's a nice backup or sometimes I have it as a snack), vitamins, and protein powder (I use the protein powder for smoothies that I typically have for lunch- so it doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the breakfast items!).

The items on this shelf I always have on hand:

• old fashioned oats
• honey
• coconut butter
• multi-vitamins

Baking Shelves:

I have two shelves with baking supplies.  Some are staples that I always like to have on hand, and others are specialty items that I will buy as needed for recipes (the brown rice syrup is an example of this).  I use oxo containers to store flour and sugar.  I love these containers because they look nice, make it much easier to scoop out ingredients, and also keep out moisture when it is humid in the summer.  They are expensive, but I highly recommend them!

Baking ingredients I always have on hand:

• unbleached all purpose flour
• white whole wheat flour 
• granulated white sugar
• brown sugar
• nonfat dry milk powder (used in bread)
• potato flakes (used in bread)
• cornmeal (used mostly in cornbread)
• baking powder
• baking soda
• coconut oil
• vanilla extract

Snack Shelf:

The last shelf in my pantry is where I keep snack items.  It's helpful to have all the snacks in one area so that if you or anyone else in your house is looking for a snack, they know where to look.  I typically have nuts, craisins + raisins, popcorn, tortilla chips, and some chocolate on this shelf.  Mark and I have recently become big fans of the Peanut Butter & Co peanut butter (I highly recommend it!).   Think about a few healthy-ish snacks you like to have on hand for this area of your pantry.

Extra Food Storage:

I have another closet in my house that has more pantry items.  Here I keep the bulk spices that I refill the small containers from, extra spices I don't use as often, bulk sugar that I fill my sugar containers from, and the canned foods that I use regularly enough in recipes that it warrants buying the cans in cases.  This is also where I keep backup items for the regular pantry.  So, for example, I noticed I was low on white vinegar last week, so I bought some on my most recent shopping trip so that when it runs out in the regular pantry, I will have one to replace it.  Note that ideally, this is not an area I should really be going to multiple times while cooking.   It is more for backup food storage.

Extra food I like to have on hand:

• black beans
• diced tomatoes
• tomato paste
• vegetable stock

IMPORTANT!  I try to be careful about only buying foods that I will actually use and not going overboard with stocking up on things.  I don't want to end up with expired food.  Buying in bulk is only cheaper if you actually use all of the food!  For example, canned pineapple is a food that I use occasionally, but not that regularly.  So that wouldn't be something I would stock up on.  Instead, I would only buy it if I needed it for a recipe the next week. Diced tomatoes on the other hand I use in lots of recipes and to make quick pasta sauce, so it's nice to have those ready to go. Same goes for black beans, tomato paste, and vegetable stock.  I use these very frequently so I know I will go through the cases long before the cans expire.  If you are new to cooking, I recommend not buying anything in bulk to start.  Then, after you have been cooking for awhile and have found a handful of recipes that you really like and make often, notice what type of ingredients you are buying every week.  These are the items that you should stock up on and consider buying in bulk.

Using Your Pantry

Once you have your pantry set up, you want to keep it working effectively.  Try to keep it organized by always returning items to the same place you took them from.  If you are running low on one of your staple items, immediately add it to your next shopping list.  We keep a running shopping list on a white board on our refrigerator.  It is EXTREMELY helpful.  Mark and I both know that if we finish something or are getting low on something, we should add it to the list.  Then before I go shopping I'll add everything from the white board to my shopping list (or I take a picture of the white board with my phone).  If you do this you are much less likely to be in the middle of a recipe and realize that you don't have olive oil, flour, or some other crucial ingredient.  Obviously this works for non-pantry items as well!

Summary

I hope this has been helpful!  Below is a summary of all the foods I mentioned above in case you want to copy/paste into a word document and modify for yourself.

• olive oil
• sesame oil
• canola oil
• coconut oil spray
• butter cooking spray
• rice vinegar
• balsamic vinegar
• distilled white vinegar
• red wine vinegar
• apple cider vinegar
• fish sauce
• cornstarch
• garlic
• onions (I keep these on top of the refrigerator)
• Basil
• Black Pepper
• Salt
• Cayenne Pepper
• Chili Powder
• Cinnamon
• Cumin
• Curry Powder
• Oregano
• Red Pepper Flakes
• Sesame Seeds
• Thyme
• Turmeric
• long grain brown rice
• quinoa
• bulgar wheat (*If I had to have only one, this would be the one I would have-- it is relatively cheap, healthy, and cooks in 15 minutes*)
• old fashioned oats
• honey
• coconut butter
• multi-vitamins
• unbleached all purpose flour
• white whole wheat flour 
• granulated white sugar
• brown sugar
• nonfat dry milk powder (used in bread)
• potato flakes (used in bread)
• cornmeal (used mostly in cornbread)
• baking powder
• baking soda
• coconut oil
• vanilla extract
• black beans
• diced tomatoes
• tomato paste
• vegetable stock
• your favorite snacks

Look for similar posts in the future about what I keep in my refrigerator and freezer and how I organize those areas.