Updating your pantry should be the very first home project you tackle this year. Bold statement, I realize, but the key to healthy eating lies in your pantry. Having a well-stocked pantry is your first (& easiest) step towards a more productive and successful year. While that may sound a bit dramatic, a well-stocked pantry saves you money & time, while ensuring healthful eating and adherence to your preferred eating plan. A tiny bit of planning as the year begins yields flavorful, healthful and delicious meals in the months to come.
Why Create a Well-Stocked Pantry
Have you ever found a delicious recipe online, eager to try it immediately, only to find that you are missing half of the ingredients in your home? So you drive to the store, purchasing everything you need (plus a few extras that caught your eye and empty stomach), then head home. Once there, you unload all the groceries, now a bit tired from your excursion, definitely less eager to try out this recipe, but your grumbling stomach (& family) encourage you otherwise.
It’s happened to me and I know it’s happened to you. But it doesn’t have to. Sure, there’s always that one off item that I don’t stock that makes me head out to the store unexpectedly. But that’s rare. Why? Because I try my best to plan ahead. I spend WAY too much money when I grocery shop on an empty stomach and I follow my budget less strictly when persuaded to follow a last-minute recipe. I waste time, money, energy and patience with these avoidable trips.
So, I decided to take back my time and begin meal planning. But to ensure that I’d spend less on groceries by planning ahead, I first needed to identify common items we used regularly. Then I purchased them either in bulk or on sale, saving our family money and myself quite a bit of time. By creating a well-stocked pantry, I ensure that 80% of the items I need for every weekday meal are already onsite, paid for with budgeted money, and immediately at my disposal. Any one-off items, I order online for curbside pickup, preventing splurge purchases and saving me time in the process. Fresh items are sourced at our local farm weekly.
How To Create a Well-Stocked Pantry
My pantry will likely look nothing like yours. And that’s perfectly fine. I bet our tastes are different from yours. As such, your pantry should reflect what you like to eat and how you like to cook. To do otherwise would be a waste of your time, your money and all the food items you’ll never eat. So, as you read on, use my pantry as a template for your own, molding it into one that reflects your culinary interests and family’s needs.
Make a List
When I created our pantry, I evaluated what we liked to eat and made a list of the items we seemed to commonly use in most of our recipes. My pantry started from there. We eat a lot of Mediterranean foods, so incorporating popular grains, seeds, pastas, spices, olives, jarred vegetables, etc made sense for us. We also included popular snack items that can be thrown into a last-minute travel bag or added to a lunch bag. I also like to bake, so all the basic paraphernalia for that needed to become a part of the pantry. In addition to simple observation, I also developed meal plans.
Meal Planning
I love a good plan and creating a weekly meal plan helps to save time and money. Sense a theme here? During our busy work weeks, having a meal plan in place prevented us from dining out excessively, running to the convenience store for snacks or ordering take out every night. If forced use to use the groceries we purchased, creating healthy, tasty, and satisfying meals. Cooking at home allows for a happier digestive system, a fuller wallet, and a healthier body.
From the meal plan, I would often select recipes that had the grains, spices and other items already an arm’s length away in my pantry. And by doing so, we prevented items from sitting stale on our shelves, only to be tossed when expired. Food waste is such an issue in our society, we don’t want to exacerbate the issue further when we can help it. Sure, it happens, but so much less than before we had a plan.
Develop a System
For me, if I can’t see something, it might as well not exist. So when developing our own well-stocked pantry, I chose to invest in bins, baskets & containers that would allow me to visualize what we had in stock versus trying to remember it all. This doesn’t have to be a necessary step for everyone, but it was crucial to me using everything timely, reducing our food waste & knowing what I have to work with.
“Building” Your Well-Stocked Pantry
When we moved into our current home, we had more space within our kitchen for all our food stuffs. No longer did I need to house part of our stock in a separate area of the home, only to be forgotten (& wasted). But the pantry we inherited had a ton of wasted space and did not suit our needs. So we literally built a new pantry.
I’m not endorsing that for everyone. In fact, what I mean by building your own pantry is to identify what you need to properly visualize and access your goods, so that you can utilize them whenever the need arises. For us, that meant more shelving, some baskets, several storage containers so that I could SEE and ACCESS what I had already purchased. To me, if I can’t see it, it might as well not exist. And if I can’t see it, and think I don’t already have it, then I’m likely to buy another, spending money unnecessarily.
The Secret – Identify Patterns
To build your own well-stocked pantry, review the list you made above and identify patterns. Do you eat a lot of rice or pasta dishes? If so, would it seem smarter to purchase a large 10# bag of rice and decant into a canister versus buying 10 one-pound bags and stacking them on your shelf? For me, I’d rather buy in bulk – it’ll save me money, keep my pantry neater and allow me to better visualize what/how much I have. If you aren’t big on rice, maybe you don’t stock this at all in your pantry, or maybe only purchase one bag. Remember, your well-stocked pantry should be reflective of your tastes. The goal is to make your life easier by having mostly everything you need available to you at a moment’s notice. Creating healthful meals for your family is the endgame for your preparation.
You certainly don’t have to buy vessels to line your shelves, but you can if you want. It’s YOUR pantry and whatever makes meal planning easier is the perfect choice for you.
Building a well-stocked pantry is about identifying patterns in our eating, making a thoughtful purchasing plan, and setting ourselves up for success. This might take time. I’m certainly not endorsing spending an entire paycheck revamping your non-perishables. But if you want to make a change, this is an easy way to do so. Take your time and gradually add items from your list to your well-stocked pantry. Before you know it, you’ll have everything you need – plus extra money in your wallet!
So What’s In My Well-Stocked Pantry?
Because we eat a largely Mediterranean diet, I generally stock canned/jarred tomatoes, olives, garlic, shallots, onions, rice, pasta, canned vegetables, and beans. For snacks, we like pretzels, nuts, granola bars, popcorn. And for breakfast we have oatmeal, cereal, peanut butter, jellies and other canned fruits for when the crisper isn’t full. I have all of the necessities for baking, plus a basket full of extra ingredients like various chips, icings, boxed mixes, puddings and even an extra pack of vanilla beans.
Sidenote: I keep my spices across the kitchen closer to my stove and my extracts, baking powder/soda, vinegars, oils and cake decorating supplies in a lazy Susan near my workspace. I decided that it’s simply easier to have them closer to me when I’m working than across the kitchen, since I use them all so often. And it saved space in the pantry.
I have other items that we use frequently as well, like tuna, breadcrumbs, sauces, spices, and an entire bin for other snacks! Below is a list of items commonly found in my well-stocked pantry, but feel free to customize it to suit your needs & preferences.
Renovating Our Pantry
Our former pantry had 4 wire shelves, that sagged under the bulging weight of our food stuffs. As you can see in the photo, it was such a mess, creating so much waste. I hated to look at it and it was nearly impossible to organize all our stuff on four small shelves to identify (& use!) everything we had. So, our pantry was not well used during this period, and it did nothing to help our food budget.
Once we decided to revamp this inherited pantry and create our own version, I knew I needed to create a better space for our needs. This meant more shelving but spaced in such a way to allow room for our small appliances, cookbooks and even overflow. I wanted everything at my fingertips so I could use it more readily. So, we built 7 shelves (which included one hidden shelf for overflow/on deck items), moved all of the small appliances off of the counter tops (creating a roomier kitchen) and relocated all of my cookbooks from the office across the house to the place in which I use them most.
I also decided that the thought of seeing bags of food toppled over on these new shelves didn’t appeal to me, so I invested in cheap baskets from Amazon (using gift cards!) and plastic containers from Bed, Bath and Beyond using those mailed coupons and yet another gift card. I also bought a pack of labels so that I knew where everything was located.
So, for us, creating a useful pantry requiring a small project, but it was well worth it and not very difficult. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Before = Messy Pantry
After = Organized Pantry
A Well-Stocked Pantry Can Simplify Your Life
By having a well-stocked pantry, more than half of your grocery list is already purchased and available to you. Each grocery day, purchase your fresh fruits, veggies, and proteins you’ll need to create your meals. You can buy the one-off items during these trips and use them immediately. No longer will you have food stuffs sitting on your shelves, collecting dust and eventually expiring before you can use them. Plus, you’ll always have something healthy available to make quickly when your family tells you they are hungry.
In conclusion, by evaluating your eating habits, stocking your shelves with familiar and frequently used products, & creating a meal plan, you’ll be saving loads of time, money, and stress from your life. You can always get more money, but you’ll never get more time. So, make the best of the time you do have and spend it meaningfully with those you love. In this crazy world, take a little stress out of life with a well-stocked pantry.
