Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Looking for food pantry ideas? Learn how to build a well-stocked pantry on a budget, with tips for planning meals and homemade vs store-bought choices.
A fully stocked food pantry is a happy kitchen.
I enjoy receiving emails from blog subscribers because they often seek something I can help with or reach out to my social media friends, such as you.
Food Pantry Help Needed
Today’s question comes from CBB reader Nicola Don.
Hi Mr. CBB,
What food pantry ideas can you suggest for always stocking my kitchen?
Thanks,
Nicola Don
FREE Pantry Food Tool: I’ve created a custom handy Canadian Budget Binder Pantry List for you! Just click save and print.
Shop The Sales To Build A Food Pantry
When we put together our weekly shopping list, we aim to purchase staples to help us build healthy, flavourful meals.
The most crucial part is ensuring we stick to our grocery budget, so we plan our meals around flyer specials of the week.
You can create many meals with staples and fresh and frozen essentials in your food pantry.
If you have ever thought about which is better, store-bought or homemade, while considering cost, it’s almost always homemade.
I used a lifeline and asked my Facebook community of savers for pantry ideas to help Nicola and others start stocking up.
Making Eating At Home A Priority
Often, I encourage people to limit eating out and eat at home for budgeting and health reasons.
Eating out all the time does no good for the waistline or the pocket-book.
You might think you know what’s going into your meal take-out or eat-in meal, but do we?
One reason people eat out is the failure to stock pantry food items essential to making a tasty meal.
Meal planning and motivation also help to put home-cooked meals on the table.
We prefer to keep our food pantry stocked as it helps maintain our grocery budget, although items can vary from household to household.
It also eliminates or reduces the need to purchase processed or packaged food.
Convenience Increases Food Expenses
It also stops us from running out to the corner store with much higher prices.
Anyone who has shopped at the corner store when they ran out of eggs, milk, or sugar knows they have just been stripped of their “Money Saver” status.
I know that you’re thinking, it happens, and people run out of an ingredient and have no choice but to go to the corner store,
This emergency is what I call the “Neighbourhood Food Pantry Support Group.”
If you have neighbors, you never know when you will need a cup of sugar!
Friends with benefits, such as your neighbors, can help each other.
Only Stockpile What You Will Use
If we take the time to stock items we use regularly, it takes the guesswork out of wondering if you have the ingredients to try a new recipe.
This pantry list is never-ending, as we all have staples that are particular to our tastes, diet, and lifestyle.
Food Pantry Ideas From CBB Facebook Fans
I want to see what families consider staples in their kitchens, and I encourage you to leave a comment below and let us know.
Fresh And Frozen Food Pantry Ideas
- Onions
- Potatoes
- Ginger
- Garlic
- Shortening
Condiments and Dry Stock Food Pantry Ideas
- Cereal
- Granola Bars
- Pure Honey
- Salad Dressing
- White/Whole Wheat/Bread/Pastry Flour (multiple others)
- Sugar/Sugar Substitutes, Brown Sugar – (numerous others)
- Couscous
- White/Brown Rice
- Spices A to Z of all kinds
- Pasta -various types, including gluten-free, whole wheat and keto.
- Quinoa
- Salsa
- Jam/Jelly
- Nut Butters
- Cous-Cous
- Ketchup
- Mustard
- Relish
- Soy Sauce
- Hot Sauces- Various kinds (Tobasco, Franks, Siraccha,
- Various oils include sesame, vegetable, avocado, extra virgin, canola, peanut, etc.
- Vinegar is made of various types, such as red wine, white wine, apple cider, etc.
- Lemon and Lime Juice
- Bread Crumbs/ Panko
- Various Nuts and Seeds include pumpkin, sesame, almonds, walnuts, pecans, etc.
- Dried Fruits include bananas, raisins, cranberries, pineapple, prunes, dates, apricots, etc.
- Dry legumes and beans
- Chicken/Beef Cubes, Bouillon soups, Vegetable cubes, etc.
- Cornmeal
- Oatmeal, Buckwheat, Cream of Wheat
- Crackers of various kinds
- Worcestershire sauce
- Cornstarch
- Coffee Whitener
- Tea, Coffee, Coffee pods, etc.
Canned Food Pantry Ideas
- Canned olives
- Canned Soup
- Tinned Vegetables
- Tins of tomatoes
- Tomato Paste
- Tuna
- Tomato Sauce
- Canned Potatoes
- Corned beef
Canning Food Pantry Ideas
I’m sharing a blog post from the Edible Pantry, “Canning Pantry,” for those who want to know the basics.
A section of our cellar pantry shelves are filled with home-canned tomatoes, applesauce, plums in sugar syrup, small jars of drunken cherries, dilly beans, pickles, grape jelly, orange marmalade, dried apples and herbs, extracts of wildflowers, and bottled and corked dandelion wine, apple wine, and rhubarb wine.
We grow and gather and dry and ferment and sauce and put it all into jars so we have some things available all year. Bushel baskets of potatoes and onions and squash and dried herbs also are stored here.
Canning Pantry- Edible Pantry
How To Keep Your Kitchen Organized
Some of my Money Saving Free Tools are listed below to help keep your budget binder organized.
Now I’m going to go on the computer and print it!! Loving the freezer inventory too!!
Thanks so do we. We filled ours out and have it taped to our freezer. We also did our pantry list and wow, the stuff we found. It’s amazing how much we Didn’t know we had in the cupboards. Cheers Shelley! Mr.CBB
Have just got to my freezer inventory in time to start on pantry. Pefect timing with my new budgetting and wanting to actually budget groceries (something I used spending alotment for). Thanks again and loved how this article was created by our little community here 🙂
It’s called working as a team towards a common goal. Sometimes we tend to forget that we are our worst enemies when it comes to justifying our spending habits. When we did our pantry list I mentioned to another fan that we found items we didn’t know we had or that was expired. We waste alot of money not being organized. Thanks for your post and I’m glad the tools help you out! Cheers Mr.CBB
away to finish my lists chalkboard paint on Sat and thanks for all the sharing I am adding a few more things to my inventory! great job everybody
I’m glad you liked the list Nicola and there’s a few things I now know I need to pick up this week to stock our pantry! Cheers and thanks for your comment. Mr.CBB
I think there’s a few things I’m going to add to my cupboards after reading this! I just borrowed mustard from my neighbour not too long ago! She’s always borrowing pasta and pasta sauce from me lol. We also just bought dry erase markers (already had the board) and we’re going to try the freezer inventory.
That’s great to hear Jen! Let us know how it works out for you. Glad you have some great neighbours 😉 Mr.CBB
Thanks for the list 🙂 Maybe as an add-on to this list you can collect the general shelf life time of these products for people. Between that and knowing how much they go through they will have a better idea of how much of each to get that wont have them throwing too much out 🙂 I just found out yesterday I could freeze yeast!
really we can freeze yeast.. what do I do, just toss the pacakage in the freezer?
yup. its probably more for people who buy yeast in bulk and use on a regular basis. the stuff already has a shelf life of 8-ish months I think. I was reading – http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/2029/freeze-or-not-freeze-yeast . It just seems to be *alot* cheaper to buy it in bulk then the little glass jars I have been using up until now. Ive gone through 2 jars in 2 months so thats $10 compared to buying 1lb of the stuff for around $7
I have 1 pkg of yeast expired in nov 2011.. you think I should toss it? Some people think it could be ok. If you know me you know I’m terrified of yeast and making bread. That is my goal this year. I want to make a loaf of olive bread… I just need to find a bread making for dummies step by step guide .. cheers Mr.CBB
For spices in the cupboard, I recommend buying whole spices (peppercorns, fennel and cilantro seeds, etc.) because sometimes the recipe requires ground and other times you need whole spices. A cheap pestal and morter will turn those seeds to dust in seconds with a little elbow grease – also lets you hold on to spices a little longer, and they have more taste power.
I have as my bare necessities:
cinnamon, black pepper, good sea salt, fennel seeds, corriander seeds, herbs de Provance, oragano, parsley, chilli powder, birdseye chillis – whole, whole nutmeg, curry powder, allspice seeds, paprika, thyme, rosemary. If you have some other spices you use all the time that are not here, then add it in!
I agree with you 100%. I have to admit I have a bit of an obsession with the pestal and Morter and have collected quite a few from my travels around the world. You are right, you can mash anything in seconds! Good points Erin! Thanks for your comment. Mr.CBB
Awesome article Mr. CBB!
It’s so neat how your Facebook community banded together to help you make this! Great work everyone!