What should you keep in the pantry for quick weeknight dinners?
Keep a small set of hard-working things: good olive oil, salt, a vinegar, garlic and onions, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans or chickpeas, pasta, rice, a hard cheese, eggs, lemons, chilli, capers or olives, and something crunchy. With those on hand, there is always a dinner within reach, even when the fridge looks bare.
A pantry is not a museum of ambitious purchases. The jar of something exotic bought for one recipe in 2021 is not helping anyone. What helps is a short list of things you use every week, kept topped up, so that dinner starts with "what shall we make" rather than "what do we have".
Here is ours, with the reason each thing is there.
The base
- Extra virgin olive oil. For cooking and, more importantly, for finishing. A decent everyday bottle and, if you like, a better one for drizzling (/food/choosing-olive-oil/).
- Salt. Fine salt for cooking and pasta water, flaky salt for the top of things.
- One good vinegar. Red wine or sherry vinegar. It sharpens dressings, sauces, beans and soups, and it fixes more flat dinners than any spice.
- Garlic and onions. Not technically pantry, but they keep for weeks in a cool, dark place, and nearly every savoury dinner starts with one or both.
- Black pepper and chilli flakes. Pepper for warmth, chilli for lift.
The body
- Tinned tomatoes. Whole peeled are the most versatile. Sauce, soup, eggs in tomato, a braise (/food/tinned-tomatoes-vs-fresh/).
- Tinned beans and chickpeas. Instant body for a meal: on toast, in pasta, in soup, crisped in a pan (/food/make-tinned-beans-taste-good/).
- Pasta. One long shape and one short. Long for oil, butter and cheese sauces; short for chunkier sauces and baked dishes.
- Rice. Risotto rice if you like risotto, long-grain for everything else. Leftover rice makes the best fried rice.
- Bread. A loaf in the freezer, sliced, toasts from frozen and becomes breadcrumbs when it goes stale.
The finishers
These are what make simple things taste deliberate.
- A hard cheese, such as Parmesan or pecorino. It keeps for weeks wrapped in the fridge, and the rinds go into soups and beans.
- Eggs. The fastest way to turn a bowl of something into dinner (/food/eggs-for-dinner/).
- Lemons. Zest for perfume, juice for brightness.
- Capers and olives. Salty, sharp, savoury. A spoonful changes a pasta.
- Something crunchy: a bag of nuts or seeds, or breadcrumbs. Toasted in oil, they make pasta, greens and salads feel finished.
The freezer drawer
- Peas and spinach. There is always a vegetable in dinner (/food/is-frozen-veg-cheating/).
- A bag of something to roast: broccoli, peppers, squash.
- Odds and ends worth keeping: leftover sauce, cooked beans, a portion of soffritto.
Nice to have
If there is room, these earn their space too: tomato paste in a tube, a jar of pesto, tahini, soy sauce, miso, a tin of coconut milk, a pot of dried oregano, a bag of lentils.
How to keep it working
- Replace things before they run out. Keep a list on the fridge or phone, and add to it the moment you open the last tin.
- Rotate. New tins at the back, older ones at the front.
- Be honest. If something hasn't been used in months, cook with it this week or give it away.
FAQ
What's the one thing we'd add first to an empty pantry?
Good olive oil. Without it, everything else tastes less good. With it, beans on toast is dinner.
Are spices worth keeping?
A few, used often: chilli flakes, black pepper, a seed like fennel or cumin, smoked paprika. A full rack of unused spices goes stale.
How do we stop the pantry getting cluttered?
Buy for the list, not for a recipe you might cook one day. Specialist ingredients can be bought when the plan is concrete.
Does a quick weeknight dinner need fresh ingredients at all?
Not necessarily. Pantry and freezer alone can make a very good meal. Fresh herbs, salad leaves or a ripe tomato are a bonus, not a requirement.
Written by the Zestasy editors. General information for curious adults, not medical, nutrition or training advice.