The 20 Pantry Staples That Make Any Recipe Possible
Stock these 20 items and you'll always have the building blocks for a healthy meal, no matter what's in season.
A good pantry is not a big pantry. It is a small set of items that combine into a lot of different dinners, so that "there's nothing in" is almost never true.
The twenty
Grains and starches
Protein that keeps
Flavour bases
Fats and acids
Seasoning
Why these and not others
Every item earns its place by appearing in many recipes rather than one. Tomato paste is on the list and passata is not, because paste is concentrated, keeps once opened, and lifts a dish you have already started. Cumin and paprika are there because between them they point food toward most of the world's cuisines.
The rule for adding to it
Before you buy a new ingredient, ask what the second thing you will make with it is. If you cannot answer, you are buying an ingredient for one recipe — which is fine occasionally, and how pantries silently fill with single-use jars.
Keeping track without effort
Add these to your pantry in Mealio once, and grocery lists will start deducting them automatically. When a plan needs 5 g of cumin and you have a jar, the line is marked In pantry rather than added to your shopping — which is the whole point of stocking staples in the first place.
Set expiry dates on the things that actually expire. Oil, nuts and spices all go stale far sooner than people assume; rice and pasta effectively do not.