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 with the basic pantry staples needed to make things like bread, cookies, cakes, marinades, dressings, and seasonings.
What’s an “ingredients home”?
I recently learned some people called it an ingredients home, family, or kitchen. Where there’s nothing ever assembled and ready to go. Think: 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.
We love knowing our ingredients list in our meals are 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?
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) 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 oil
- Apple Cider & Distilled White Vinegar
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda & 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 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. Gets the same job done as the stuff you buy in the store. One cup of milk and one tablespoon of distilled white vinegar. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and you’ll notice the milk thicken up some and it’s ready to use in your recipe that needs it like sourdough pancakes or drop biscuits. You can always make your own buttermilk too with heavy whipping cream or the cream scooped off the top of fresh milk. 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.
Follow along for more like this
Keep up to date on recent posts and sharings and more on Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram: @johnsonhomenc and
sign up for my weekly newsletter HERE.
If you try this recipe, come back and leave a comment or share a picture on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest so I can see it!
Check out other Johnson Home NC affiliated links HERE.
Johnson Home NC, the blog, is an affiliate. Some links in this blog post, if used by you, earn me a small commission. No worries, there is no added or extra cost to you to use these links! I’m grateful should you use them.
PIN IT!
Leave a Reply