I often get asked how I’m able to make so many recipes at home and the answer is quite simple; albeit, not easy. Keep your kitchen stocked well with the basic pantry staples needed to make things like bread, cookies, cakes, marinades, dressings, and seasonings is how. Read on for the printable list as well as simple kitchen hacks to save you money!
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What’s an “ingredients home”?
I recently learned some people called it an ingredients home, ingredients family, or ingredient kitchen. Where there’s nothing ever assembled and ready to go. Such as: packaged cookies, bagged bread, boxed crackers, tv dinners. But there’s all you need in the pantry to put together something from the ingredients.
It’s a love-hate relationship, I promise.
There’s peace of mind knowing the ingredients list in our meals is safe, especially when you’re a food allergy family.
Quality over quantity
Don’t be fooled— good foods made at home do take time and intentionality on your part.
When things are made convenient for us, quality is often sacrificed. Good things take time but I think you’ll find they don’t take as much time as you think they do.
Yes it’s frustrating to not have a box of crackers to grab real quick to snack on but the value in knowing our homemade crackers are well worth it and with far less harmful ingredients is priceless.
2024 grocery prices vs. pantry staples
Speaking of price… have you grocery shopped in 2024?
Update: 2026?! Gas alone is over $4.50 as a national average.
We don’t even purchase meats, eggs, milk, bread, garlic, tomatoes, yogurt, and quite a few others from the grocery store any longer. We opt to source those locally or grow/make them ourselves and preserve what we can. Despite this, our grocery bill is still the higher it has ever been even in the days before I fell down the broken food system of America’s rabbit hole 5 years ago.
These companies and stores are really out here charging us double what they did 3 years ago for the same amount (maybe more now) for poisoned foods.
So yeah, it’s frustrating not to have a bag of chips readily snackable but the quality of homemade foods is worth it to us.
Bonus: it’s cheaper to buy the pantry staples list than it is to buy all the things you need for a meal like sauces, bread, crackers, seasoning packets, etc.
Why waste time making these things easily purchased in the store?
Time is relative.
You get to decide how it is spent.
When I found out so many things I purchased in the store like brown sugar, powdered sugar, mayonnaise, tortillas, bread, etc could be made at home for a fraction of the cost,
then I realized so many of our foods are basically poison,
and that time I saw just how simple and quick it is and what I needed was already in my kitchen,
… That’s when I decided that time spent making good, nourishing foods is time well spent.
Pantry Staples
Here is a not-exhaustive list of pantry staples to get you started:
- Flour
- Sugar
- Molasses
- Onion powder
- Garlic powder
- Cumin
- Paprika
- Chili powder
- Turmeric
- Oregano
- Parsley
- Basil
- Cinnamon
- Salt & Pepper
- Honey
- Avocado or olive oil
- Apple Cider & Distilled White Vinegar
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda & baking powder
Don’t forget to save and print this list!
A few ideas for these pantry staples:
- Most breads take flour, oil, salt, and maybe a few extra things like water and a sweetener if you want.
- Majority of your baking contains those above plus eggs, vanilla extract, and brown or powdered sugar.
- So long as you have molasses and a blender, you can make your own brown sugar and powdered sugar right in your own kitchen.
- Majority of the soup bases (save all chicken bones for easy homemade soup broth!) and seasonings I use contain a combination of fresh or dried herbs I usually grow each spring or summer.
- Herbs likes parsley, dill, oregano, rosemary, thyme, basil, and sage. Spices like cumin, paprika, chili powder, onion and garlic powders, and turmeric I usually buy in bulk. I’ve attempted to make onion flakes and garlic powder and while it was a success, it takes a lot of each to make even half a grocery store sized jar.
- No need to buy buttermilk if you’ve got milk and distilled white vinegar on hand (here’s how!)
- Make your butter then save the buttermilk for recipes. I like to freeze it in ice cube trays then bag it in zip top bags to add to thaw for recipes as needed.
- And so much more! Your well stocked pantry will have you making all the healthy, from scratch meals in no time.
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